


my declaration

by iaintinapatientphase



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-01
Updated: 2016-03-08
Packaged: 2018-05-17 13:13:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 35,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5870965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iaintinapatientphase/pseuds/iaintinapatientphase
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He never does write her that sequel he promised.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. prologue

**Author's Note:**

> this began as an actual canon verse angelica/jefferson, but i got the ages wrong and had already envisioned it as a kind of "coming of age" thing for my darling angelica, so this is what we have instead. most of the story takes place when she's 24 and he's 37, minus the prologue which is two years earlier. twisty power dynamics and content deserving of that explicit rating are to come. 
> 
> angelica is a second year law student at columbia, though in the prologue she's in her senior year, crushing it in political theory.  
>   
> jefferson is an "intellectual" type, rich enough to keep getting thousands of degrees and being a pretentious fuck all over the place.  
>   
> the declaration of independence is an essay he wrote right before the last presidential elections, became a national sensation and turned the tide to elect washington, who was up against a donald trump type.

Her sisters would probably be horrified that Angelica has spent most of the day alone.

But there were so many other panels she wanted to go to, she didn’t know anyone else there, and she didn't want to drag her sisters to a political theory conference in Charlottesville. She doesn't present until four, anyway. It’s a shitty spot: most of the other attendees will have already gotten bored and left after all the star speakers finish up by three. She doesn’t mind, honestly, she’s a college senior and getting to present her thesis is an honor in and of itself. The conversations she overhears waiting for panels are almost as interesting as the speakers themselves.

She’s also been diverting herself tracking a very particular head of hair around the hotel, trying to find a moment when he’s alone and she’s feeling bold enough to approach him. The chance arrives, and she takes it before she can talk herself out of it.

“Excuse me, Mr. Jefferson?” she says tentatively, putting on her best straight A student smile.

He doesn’t look up, doesn’t give her the chance to charm him. “Am I late for another panel?” he says absently, scribbling something in his notebook. “I’ll go up in just a minute. Thanks.”

“That’s not exactly what I was saying, I’m-”

“What?” He looks up, squinting at her chest. “Where’s your shiny little badge?”

“Don’t work here. Don’t have one.” She sticks out her hand. “I’m Angelica Schuyler. I go to Columbia. I’m here presenting my thesis and I was wondering if I could ask you something.”

He takes her hand and shakes it, grip just tight enough to be passably polite. “What’s your thesis on?”

“Locke’s labor theory of property and how that applies to the distribution of intellectual property and knowledge,” she says proudly. It’s pretty fucking brilliant. She worked hard on it, finished early, even, allowing her to present at this conference in the first place.

His presentation was the one she had been looking forward to since she saw the program, hoping he might be there since she saw the location - just a few miles from his inherited estate. It didn’t disappoint. He’s working on a new book, using data from Virginia as a case study and political theory to find what does and doesn’t work in creating the ideal society. _Notes on the State of Virginia_ , he calls it. It’s fascinating. She spent so much of her life being taught about compromise and incrementalism that listening to someone argue so passionately about the perfectibility of human nature and the need for a grand, sweeping revolution makes her dizzy with awe. She can feel her head spinning, gears grinding and light bulbs shattering, as he presents ideas that she realizes she’s held in the back of her mind for a long time, unable to translate into words.

She searched out every scrap of Jefferson’s work she could find after he published the Declaration of Independence four years ago, just before the last presidential election. _We hold these truths to be self evident_ … it still gives her chills. She wants to talk to him, has to, the need to get further inside his head overtaking all of her other thoughts. She remembers reading those words for the first time, turning them over and over in her head, trying to figure out why "pursuit of happiness" struck such a chord.

“Interesting,” he allows, shoving his glasses up so they hold back some of his wild hair. “Ask your something, it appears I’ve got time.”

“Why did you say ‘all men are created equal?’”

He stares at her blankly.

“In the Declaration,” she adds unnecessarily.

“I know,” he says, half laughing. “I wrote it. What exactly is your problem with the phrase? There is something to be said for inequality of ability, but if you read beyond that it clearly wasn’t the point I was trying to make.”

“No, it’s not that,” she says, a little flustered. She hadn’t really expected to get _Thomas Jefferson’s_ full attention and isn’t exactly sure what to do now that she has it. “Why just ‘men?’ Why not include women?”

“Oh. Really, that?” He gives her a tired, put upon look. “It’s synecdoche, Miss…?” He waves a hand carelessly. “I forgot.”

“Schuyler. Angelica Schuyler.”

“Sure. It’s synecdoche, ‘men’ being the generally used term for all of humanity. Women are assumed to be included,” he finishes, sighing pedantically, like he was explaining one plus one equals two.

“Then why use the word ‘men’ at all? Surely I’m not the first person to notice.”

“No, you’re not, but I hope you’ll be the last to bother me about it,” he says, digging in his bag for a water bottle and taking a long drink. He raises an eyebrow slightly when she doesn’t apologize or leave. “And here I had imagined that someone at a political theory conference might want to discuss the larger themes, you know, the things that actually matter, rather than the presence or lack of two words.”

“The words do matter,” she insists. “If we’re going to hold up your text as this defining moment in American history, I need to know why I was left out. So why?” she repeats stubbornly. “I’ve read the entire thing, obviously, the rest is inspired. But I don’t understand why you would choose ‘all men’ rather than ‘all people’ or simply ‘all?’ Why not include women? It’s egregious, honestly.”

“Wo-ow-ow, there’s a lot to unpack here,” he says. He sits up, his posture going from "half asleep" to "might be listening" as he decides to engage. “First, no ‘if.’ We do hold up ‘my text’ as a defining moment in American history. It stopped a war. Decided an election. You’re welcome.”

She stares at him, stunned.

“No ‘thanks?’ My, they really don’t teach you New York girls anything.” He shakes his head. “Second, and this is important, you need to relax. It’s not about you, personally, it’s a meditation on the state of humanity as a whole. We are all created equal in the eyes of our creator, not Angelica Schuyler is created equal to Bob Whateverthefuck, or people from Massachusetts are equal to those of South Carolina. We. General. Nonspecific.”

“Okay, but-”

“Also, ‘egregious?’ Adorable. Your GRE flashcards are paying off.”

What a complete asshole. “And third?” she says, crossing her arms over her chest so he can’t see the way her hands shake. She wants to run in the other direction but she won’t give him the satisfaction.

Again he raises an eyebrow, silently asks her why the fuck she’s still standing there. She glares back, and he rolls his eyes and refocuses. “‘All men are created equal,’” he says seriously, without even a hint of embarrassment over quoting himself. “It sounds better. ‘All _people_ are created equal?’ Bit of a rhyme, and sounds awkward.”

“And with the advantage of not being cis-sexist as well,” she adds.

“‘ _All_ are created equal?’” he continues without acknowledging she spoke. “‘All’ what? Ideas? Sheep? Kings? It’s not self evident if you have to specify. I really did give it a bit of thought, in case you thought the Declaration of Independence is somehow the same as some text your boyfriend sent you between jerking off and playing video games.”

Angelica ignores that, not without significant effort. “‘All men and women are created equal,’” she says. “Sounds pretty good to me.”

“It’s awkward, adding all those words in there. Takes away the impact.”

“The impact,” she repeats. “What impact? It’s two words.”

“Didn’t you just say that these two words matter? Matter enough to you, apparently, to accost people and start arguments in public?”

“I’m not arguing with you, I’m just asking a question,” she says, but she can hear the irritation in her voice and knows he can too.

Jefferson stands up and sets his drink down to make some dramatic, sweeping gesture. “All. Men,” he booms theatrically. “Bold. Simple. Elegant.”

“Sexist. Boring. Unoriginal,” she mocks viciously. “Bad writing.”

He glares down at her. “‘All men and women,’” he says quickly, higher pitched, clearly some stupid impression of her. “Too many words.”

“You could have found a way to make it work if it mattered to you,” she snaps.

“Listen,” he laughs incredulously, “It’s not my fault ‘men and women’ doesn’t sound good.”

“Right, it’s not your fault that our patriarchal society created a language where ‘men’ is the default and there’s no non awkward way to address female power,” she says through her tight, forced smile. “You just benefit from it. Goodbye, Mr. Jefferson, it was a thrill to meet you.”

He steps around her, blocking her path to the elevator. “It was very nice to meet you as well, Angelica,” he says, smiling down at her like this is all some joke. She’s furious, heart beating loud in her ears, and he looks almost giddy, like their conversation was a game that he loved winning. He looks so unadulteratedly pleased that it makes her feel embarrassed for getting so angry, for losing her temper, for thinking that this matters at all.

She scowls. “It’s Miss Schuyler.” She’ll be professional even if he seems incapable or unwilling to.

“Is it?” He drags his eyes from her face, down her neck, and lower, and she can’t breathe. She knows it’s inappropriate, knows he’s an asshole, that he’s overstepping boundaries he shouldn’t even be close to, but she shivers all the same under the weight of his eyes. He smirks, staring at her mouth, and she realizes with a start that she’s biting her lip. “That’s what I thought.”

“You forget yourself,” she snaps, and tries again to move around him.

“I don’t think I do.” He grabs her hand, quick and surprisingly graceful, covering it in both of his, something he doesn’t have the right to and is far too late to try for. “You know, Angelica, if this is what you wanted, you didn’t need to pretend to care about my Declaration. You could have just asked. I’ve got plenty of time.” He kisses her hand, eyes locked on hers, like this is an eighteenth century ballroom and not an academic conference at a Marriott.

She yanks it back a beat or three too late. “You can keep it. And your bullshit _synecdoche_.”

“I’ll write you a sequel!” he calls after her. She doesn’t turn around.


	2. fall i

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She’s still nervous, but Angelica's not a girl who shies away from a challenge, and she’ll die before she lets him win.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> most updates will probably not be so quick, but i felt weird having the prologue and no first chapter, and it was already written anyway.
> 
> chapter two: the one in which we earn that explicit rating. also angelica is one tough bitch and i ADORE her.

The dean sits behind his comically enormous desk, quietly listening to her proposal, face smooth and unreadable, despite her best efforts.

She finishes the little speech she wrote out last week, painstakingly choosing every word, and she rehearsed in the mirror for an hour. The speech she had specifically chosen to end with a question, so he would have to respond. Except she got a little nervous, had gone too fast, and her question had sounded more like her trailing off, and now he was just sitting there, barely awake, not answering her.

“Right,” he says finally, sitting up incrementally in his chair. “I’ll be in touch, Miss Shiller.”

“Schuyler.”

He blinks. “Sorry?”

“It’s Schuyler,” she says quickly, pressing ahead before she loses his attention again. “Sir, I know the class isn’t until next semester and we’ve barely started this one, but I’m interviewing for internships soon and I’d really love to be able to plan around my finalized course schedule. I’m first in my class, I’ve brought letters from all of my professors and the instructor for this course. I know it’s unconventional, to take classes in the political science department while I’m enrolled in law school, but I think- know that this will be an invaluable addition to my education here at Columbia.”

“I can see that,” he says. “I told you, I’ll be in touch once I’ve had a chance to review your materials. Thanks for coming in.”

She tries one more time. “Sir, if you could just _please_ -”

“Miss Schuyler. I will be in touch,” he repeats coldly, like a fucking android. “There’s no need to get emotional.”

She could kill him, could reach across his parody of a powerful man’s desk and punch him in the fucking face, but she forces herself to smile and thank him, closing the door behind her achingly slow so she isn’t tempted to slam it. She drops the act too soon, running an anxious hand through her hair and allowing herself to drop the smile, and his secretary raises her eyebrows condescendingly as Angelica leaves the office.

That went _awfully_ , and she doesn’t understand how she fucked it up so badly. She’s gotten very good at getting what she wants from people, even and especially horrible assholes like the dean, practicing all the different versions of herself to best suit the situation. The right pitch of voice, length of a smile, how to make it clear you know someone’s weaknesses without directly calling them out; flirty when it suits her, innocent when it works better, how to say thank you while telling someone to go fuck themselves. It’s not that she’s some hardened cynic, but she’s a young woman trying to go places and she’ll use any weapon at her disposal to do so. But it didn’t work with the dean, she got flustered and wanted it too badly and it made her indelicate. She doesn’t know who she’s angrier with.

She glances at her watch and shit, she’s late. She hurries out and jumps into a cab, shoving her blazer into her backpack and trading her flats for boots in the backseat. She doesn’t have time to fix her lipstick, but trusts that it’s good enough when they pull up at the restaurant where her father is helping host a fundraiser for Governor Clinton’s re-election campaign this fall.

She rushes in and finds him talking to a few generic old guys in suits.

“Have you all met my oldest, Angelica? She’s in law school at Columbia. First in her class,” he says proudly.

She introduces herself around, smiling politely, dislodging her hand from one of the men who even with her father standing right next to her looks at her like he can see through her clothes. She can feel the edges of her smile going brittle.

“Excuse us for a moment, guys,” Dad says easily, leading her to the booths on the side of the room. “Let’s at least put your backpack down.”

“I’m sorry I’m late, Dad,” she says, sneaking a guilty glance at him. “I got delayed in a meeting.”

“It’s okay, Angie, don’t worry about it. I have Larry with me anyway,” he says, fistbumping his obscenely muscled detail guy as they slide into the booth next to him.

“Hi, Larry. How’s your mom doing?”

“Ma’s good. She bought an iPhone the other day, I’ve been trying to teach her how to use it,” he says with fond exasperation. Larry lives in Staten Island, two houses down from his mother, with his partner and their three beautiful kids. He taught her how to throw a punch as her thirteenth birthday present. Angelica adores him.

“Oh my god, I’m gonna text her,” Angelica says delightedly. “Can I please?”

Larry nods, repressing a grin. He’s got his professional, protective face on.

“How did the meeting go?" Dad asks. "With the political science dean, right?”

“It was fine,” she lies. “He’s going to review my materials and get back to me.”

“Good. Are you coming for dinner tomorrow? I know you’re busy, but we’d love -”

“Senator Schuyler!”

He stiffens slightly, slipping into his practiced political smile and putting on his Vote for Me voice. “Ben,” he says, standing up to shake hands. “Good to see you. How’s the family?”

Angelica slips out of the booth. She’s still pissed about earlier and is itching for something, the kind of destructive decisions she probably shouldn’t make where her father and his secret service agent can see. There are plenty of the young, ambitious, always-on-the-edge-of-too-drunk type guys that she occasionally diverts herself with around the bar, which might be a good place to start. She's just about to order when someone interrupts her.

“Card her, she’s too young to drink.”

Thomas Jefferson grins down at her, somehow still taller even sitting, one velvet blazer clad elbow draped impressively lazily over the bar for the way it’s still resting on a napkin to stay clean.

“I’ve been looking forward to continuing our conversation,” he says, like it was two minutes and not two years ago, with a smile she’s sure he thinks is charming. (It is.) “Have you?”

She shows her ID to the bartender, carefully ignoring him. Only when she has her drink and takes a first fortifying sip does she look back. “Not particularly.”

Angelica read _Notes on the State of Virginia_ just a few months ago. It wasn’t what she was expecting, to be honest, but now she thinks she should have known. The work as a whole was almost perfect, a deep and illuminating meditation on the role of government in improving society. There was a single chapter about demographics and national character that gave her extreme pause, caught off guard by his vaguely isolationist, separatist beliefs and bizarre lack of appreciation for diversity, arguing that there is one true American citizen and anything else is harmful to the national character. It really is odd, especially when held against his obsession with personal liberty, but she majored in political theory. She doesn’t need to love a book to find it interesting.

“Ooh, someone’s feeling feisty,” he says. “Have you picked another two of my words to fight over? I did enjoy our last conversation, but quibbling over a word is elementary and dull. I’m anxious to see what else you’ve got.”

She flushes hot with remembered anger. “I’m not really interested in any more of your insights. But I guess it is nice to see you, Mr. Jefferson,” she says sweetly, with a razor sharp smile.

His grin drops off his face for a split second before returning, wider and somehow dirtier than before. “That’s very cute.”

She can’t hold back a glare at that. She really should be better about that, all these old dudes are constantly _honey baby sweetie_ -ing her and she’s gotten pretty used to brushing it off. But the way he says it, not from some paternalistic ignorance but from clear malice, trying to get under her skin - it works, and it’s not like she’s not already on edge.

“Shouldn’t you be off charming another thousand bucks off a donor?” she shoots back, but it’s weak and clearly doesn’t bother him. Another man might laugh to flatter her, but he doesn't.

He gives her an amused sort of pitying look. “I don’t ‘charm’ money off of anyone. I’m here as a favor to Clinton, and I’ve fulfilled my end of the bargain. Shame you missed my speech, it was a good one.”

“I’m sure you think so,” she says, but he just rolls his eyes. She lost this round, she realizes, getting a sinking feeling in her stomach, and Angelica  _hates_  losing. He’s already starting to lose interest, his attention shifting back towards the room, attention she didn’t even know she wanted five minutes ago.

“Have you made any progress on that sequel you promised me?” she tries, and is pleased when her voice stays light. She gives him the eyes she’s spent more hours than she cares to admit practicing in the mirror.

It works: he turns back to her, not as fast as another man might have, but back all the same. “I haven’t,” he says.

“Well, why not?”

He grins again, and she’s back in the game.

“I have to be honest with you,” he says, “I think I said everything there was to be said on the subject. Once you’ve defined a topic, why continue?”

“Wait,” she says, too shocked to even laugh. “Are you implying that you, just you, summed up everything there was to be said about independence?”

“I certainly wrote the defining text. Anything else is derivative.” He shrugs, casually and completely arrogant.

“You don’t own the subject,” she says disdainfully, but it’s hard to fight back how weirdly excited she is. He really is picking this up exactly where they left off, but she's older now, smarter, and better at this. She can match him this time, or at least do better. “It’s not like you invented the concept of liberty.”

“‘Pursuit of happiness,’ however, is a Jefferson original.”

“Okay,” she concedes, “so you can claim credit for that, and know that you influenced a whole new generation of people trying to figure out what that means to them. But you don’t own liberty.”

“No one can own liberty, Angelica, it isn’t a noun, it’s a _concept_ ,” he quotes her condescendingly, and she flushes.

“That’s not what I was saying, if you would just -”

“If you think about it,” he muses, like she’s not there at all, “I really can claim credit for most of the current discourse, considering that my essay is the reason we have a president instead of a king and are allowed to have such discussions at all. Any kind of independence, or study of, is because of my work.”

“Your absolutely unreal and unbearable arrogance aside, that doesn’t mean you can take ownership of all discussions on independence for the rest of time,” she counters. “You should be recognized for your contribution to the conversation, but what others do from there is their own unique interpretation. It’s like a kindergarten teacher claiming credit for every word a former student ever writes.”

He snorts into his drink. “Now who’s quoting themselves?”

She pulls up short. “You read my thesis?”

“I was intrigued,” he says casually, snapping his fingers at the bartender, who hurries over with fresh rounds for both of them. “I listened to your presentation and then got a copy from your professor.”

“You did? How?”

“Being the country’s premier genius tends to give one a little pull, if only in academic circles.” He smiles at her with something approaching actual genuine humanity. “You’re better in print. So am I.”

“I-”

“Mr. Jefferson!”

“Livingston,” Thomas says lazily, not bothering to get up from his seat to shake his hand.

“We’re so glad you could make it, your speech was just wonderful. When are you publishing a follow up to Notes?”

“Eh,” he shrugs. “I think I might take a trip back to Paris before I do any more writing. Definitely no more political bullshit for a while,” he says, smirking wickedly at Livingston, who shifts uncomfortably, making Thomas’s smile grow even wider.

Angelica watches him carefully, intrigued by the way he doesn’t code switch or even put his manners back on when talking to Important People. She guesses that when you’re Thomas Jefferson you’re an Important People in your own right, but still, his total lack of effort is... interesting. If anything, he tries to be as inappropriate as possible, making everyone else uncomfortable and going out of his way to demonstrate that he thinks he’s the smartest person in the room. It’s so male and so juvenile. She could never get away with it.

Livingston barely looks up when she excuses herself, but Thomas lets his eyes rest on her for a long, slow moment before turning back to his drink like she was never there.

She finds her father, makes her excuses. Instead of heading for the lobby, she finds herself walking out the side door that leads directly to the street and the dark, freezing night.

He’s there, like she somehow knew he would be, leaning carelessly against the wall and texting.

“Thomas,” she says, and when did she start calling him that?

He doesn’t look up for a long moment, finishing whatever he was doing. He raises his head, meets her eyes, and smiles. “Very good,” he says. “You made it. Welcome.”

“Welcome?” She very pointedly ignores the weird swoop in her stomach at his approval. “To the outside?”

“I had important business to attend to. You just followed. I am interested in your excuse, if you have one.”

She doesn’t bother.

“That’s what I thought,” he says again, and she remembers him _looking_ at her, dragging his gaze over every inch of her and feels a shiver go down her spine. This time, this night, he doesn’t, just stares at her face and patiently waits.

“What did you think?” she says, trying for coy, tilting her head slightly.

He rolls his eyes, exasperated, but his mouth quirks in a half smile. “I’ve told you before, Angelica, you don’t need to bother with the tricks and excuses and the half-assed flirting. If you want something from me, just ask.”

He leans back against the wall and waits for her to close the distance. Like a dare, like a challenge, like he’s waiting to see just how far she’ll take this.

 _Fuck it,_ she thinks, and pushes herself up on her toes to kiss him.

He makes her lead. It’s a strange role reversal, certainly not what she expected from a man thirteen years older than her - _thirteen years older, what the fuck is she doing?_ It’s intoxicating, trying to make him match her pace, pulling his wild hair to get him at the exact right height when she rocks back onto her heels. He pushes back only when it’s gone too far to maintain his deniability, his detachment, coming to life beneath her hands with a dizzying abruptness, shoving a leg between hers and biting her lip, tugging on it until she whimpers involuntarily. She can feel him smirk when he hears and digs her nails into his arm with a flash of irritation. That he finds even funnier, pulling his mouth away from hers to laugh into her neck.

“You are such an asshole,” she breathes, fighting successfully to keep her voice even and disinterested as he slides his tongue over her pulse, fingers digging painfully good into her waist.

“If you say so,” he says easily, forcing back her up on her toes so he can get a better angle on her throat. He pulls her forward, dragging her over his thigh to fit their hips together, and it feels way too good to be annoyed at the way he moves her around like she’s a doll.

She’s the first to pull away. She has to, or she thinks she might drown.

Her chest rises and falls rapidly as she struggles to get her breathing under control. He looks entirely composed, if not for his slightly swollen lips and the way she can feel his heart beating wildly.

“Do you -” she squares her shoulders, lets her mouth twist suggestively - “want to continue this?”

“Do you?” he counters.

She feels drunk with power, imagining the two of them balancing on the edge of the knife, and it’s her words that decide which way they’ll fall. He’s far too old for her, kind of a dick, not someone she can ever talk about to her friends or family. But she looks at him and _wants_ , more than she’s wanted anything in a long time, this man and his cruel jokes and quick mind, the way he scares her a little and makes her dig in the deepest corners of her mind to match him. Wants the challenge, wants to win, wants that something that he has and she envies so much, even if she doesn’t know what it is.

There’s a smudge of her lipstick, pomegranate red, on the side of his mouth. She slowly, deliberately wipes it away.

“I do,” she says.

His apartment’s on the top floor of a townhouse. Even as she follows him up the stairs to the door, she feels like she’s falling so far below the earth’s surface she’ll never be found. She’s not sure she wants to be.

He unlocks the door and she follows him inside. He throws his coat aimlessly over the couch, doesn’t even think to take hers. "Welcome," he says again, making some kind of dramatic "voila!" motion with his arms. She follows their path through the air and back down to his sides, where his long fingers drum against his thigh.

She forces herself out of her head and takes a step closer to him.

He looks down at her apprehensively, even as one of his hands comes up to the side of her face, his thumb pressing lightly on her bottom lip. There’s something fluttering in her stomach; she doesn’t know if it’s anticipation or dread. Maybe both. She nods, a tiny motion all she can manage with his hands on her, but he leans down, far enough that she doesn’t have to stand on her toes this time, and kisses her. His tongue sweeps into her mouth as he starts walking her backwards: a pleasing symmetry.

His room is dark. She’d love to get a better look of what’s inside, add to her rapidly growing collection of facts about Thomas Jefferson, but the single lamp he flicks on while she twists out of her tights doesn’t illuminate too much else but him.

He doesn’t push so much as suggest with a soft touch to her stomach that she get on the bed, but she feels compelled all the same, lying back propped up on her elbows as he looms over her, dark and unfathomable. They both watch one of his hands slide down from her neck, her chest, and lower, before stopping abruptly right above where she wants it.

She nudges his shoulder, impatient.

He shakes his head. “No. Ask.”

“What?”

“If you want something, ask for it.”

“What the fuck, Thomas, come on,” she laughs.

He blinks up at her and says nothing.

She shifts slightly, but his arm is wrapped tightly around her thigh and doesn’t give her much space to move.

“I want,” she stops, looks away from him, up at the ceiling so he can’t see her freak out. “I want you to use your mouth.”

“Okay,” he says simply. “Where?”

She makes herself look down at him, bracing herself for a teasing smirk or something darker, but he’s just looking up at her expectantly, like he has all the time in the world to wait for her answer. It’s disconcerting. She knows how to play the other games, how to tease, how to beg, how being denied can be the same as being indulged - but that's not what this is. She doesn’t know what this is, but she supposes there's only one way to find out.

“There,” she says tentatively, pointing at a spot high on her thigh. He immediately complies, pressing a warm, open mouthed kiss there.

“There,” she tries again, feeling a little bolder, tapping one finger where her leg meets her pelvis, close enough to what she really wants that his cheek slides against her, the motion of his jaw making her jump.

She’s still nervous, but Angelica's not a girl who shies away from a challenge, and she’ll die before she lets him win. “There,” she says, pointing at her clit.

He moves there as easily as he moved up her leg, sliding the flat of his tongue over her. “Do that again,” she says breathily and shudders when he does. “Fuck,” she moans. “Circles?” she waves her hand, drawing something vaguely round until he gets her meaning and starts working his tongue around and around and around. She grits her teeth, trying to focus long enough to find the next set of words. “Can you - shit - suck on it? A little?” He does; and it’s too much and exactly what she wanted at the same time. “Harder, wait, no, fuck, less, a little more, yes, fucking god yes, like that.”

“Down,” she gasps, “further.” He goes down further, letting his tongue drag down along with him. She pauses to catch her breath and she can feel him there, waiting, both of them practically vibrating with anticipation.

“In,” she says, and he immediately slides his tongue inside her; “around,” she says, and he works it slowly, maddeningly slow, around. One of his hands is pressed against her, baring her to his mouth, and with difficulty she locates the other where it rests against her stomach and tries to push it down towards her clit.

That he doesn’t seem to like, looks up at her with dark, reproachful eyes, even as he fucks her with his tongue.

“Sorry?” she says automatically, and he rolls his eyes. He unfocuses for a second, and his tongue twists inside of her and a strangled “FUCK” escapes from her chest.

He raises his head. “Don’t apologize,” he says, voice strangled and hoarse and like the softest sandpaper scraping down her spine. “Just ask me for what you want.”

 _What do you want?_ she wants to scream at him. _What is this?_

“Um. Back up,” she says instead and he’s pressing the tip of his tongue to her before she can blink. She swallows back the apparently unnecessary “please” on the tip of her tongue.

“Fingers?” He hums slightly and her hand clenches in the sheets. He presses the tips of his fingers against her entrance, tapping each quickly. “Two,” she answers, and he presses them inside so slowly she thinks she might die. They flutter inside her, searching out that little spot while his tongue keeps a steady rhythm on her clit. “Higher,” she tells him. “No, left.” It’s weirdly thrilling to feel his hands respond to her so easily, almost like they’re her own.

He finds it, she knows he does, but holds back, fingers resting just below. “Are you fucking serious? I want you to touch me there,” she demands. Somewhere through the haze that she falls into when he does she feels him distinctly moan into her, quietly, but she knows she hears it.

“Yeah,” she chokes out. “Another one. And the,” she lets out a little wordless cry when he adds his ring finger, “like this.” She pries her hand up off the bed and tries to make a curling motion that she immediately feels echoed by his larger hand. “Yes, god, like that. Harder, with your mouth, Thomas, more, like really fucking hard and don’t stop, oh god, fuck,” she gasps, coming so hard she sees stars.

\---------

It’s freezing when she wakes up, and he’s stolen all the covers.

She slips out of bed, glad he’s still asleep. She’s not sure she wants to talk to him this morning. She feels uncomfortably exposed, thrown off balance by her new perspective on him and worrying about what he knows of her.

She doesn’t get her wish. “Hey,” he mumbles. “I didn’t say you had to go.”

“I have things to do,” she says airily, tugging her dress back on. “See ya.”

This is it, she thinks, heading towards the door. An interesting story, a night of mind blowing sex, the knowledge of how big Thomas Jefferson’s dick is. Not bad takeaways, even if she didn’t totally figure out what drew her to him in the first place.

“Wait,” he calls from behind her. “You can’t leave here like that. I fly pretty below the radar, but you never know. I can’t have barely legal girls leaving here like _that_ , looking all just fucked and shit.”

“I’m twenty four,” she says irritably and pointlessly. He’s right, unfortunately, she hadn’t even thought about that. It’s not like she’s totally anonymous - growing up rich and a senator’s daughter in Manhattan has landed her face in the society pages more than a few times. “Like I want to be seen leaving your apartment in last night’s dress? The last thing I want is to be the girl who slept her way to the top.”

He looks at her skeptically and the edges of her vision go white with rage.

“Don’t,” she hisses. “That’s not what this is about.”

“I didn’t say it was,” he says mildly.

“Fuck you,” she spits and yanks open the door.

His hand slams on it above her, shoving it closed while his other hand grabs her shoulder and turns her around to face him, finally abandoning his reserve.

“Angelica,” he says, tone still even, though there’s a tightness in the way he holds himself she hasn’t seen yet and is immediately desperate to figure out the cause of. It’s almost like he gives a shit about something. “It’s very disappointing to see you act like someone less intelligent than you are.”

“I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean,” Angelica says, far too honestly. Not for the first time, she wonders what exactly he wants from her.

“Sure you don’t.” He opens his mouth like he wants to say something else, but closes it and sighs. “You can borrow a shirt and I might have some pants you can make work. I’ll call you a cab.”

She wishes more than anything else that she hadn’t ditched her backpack with her father, that she could at least walk out of here in her own fucking clothes. She finds her discarded tights on the floor, slips back into them and her boots, thankful that this at least will look decent with her coat over them. She deliberately chooses a shirt that almost fits her, ties it tight around her waist. The last thing she wants to look like is some movie cliche in a giant man’s shirt, or worse, a child playing dress up in her father’s clothes.

She glares at herself in the mirror, shoving her hair into a bun. It’s not her fault that he insists on being stupid tall and larger than anyone who fancies themselves a modern Renaissance man should be.

Thomas points wordlessly to a car idling by the curb when she stomps back into the hallway.

“So what? Is this it?”

“I don’t know, is it?”

“Not necessarily,” she says hesitantly. The possibility hadn't really occurred to her, and in no way did she think it would be her choice. She shrugs, looks away, nervous despite the boldness he wrung out of her last night. “I wouldn’t mind maybe doing it again sometime. If you… if you want to, that is.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?” She studies him, waiting for the trick or the gimmick or the sharp remark. It’s still weird, when she remembers who exactly he is. He doesn’t look all that intimidating, standing there in ratty sweats and a white t-shirt so old the neck slips down to his collarbone, but something about him still makes her painfully aware of every inch of her, wondering what he might be thinking.

He gives her that same exhausted, exasperated look from before. “Yes, Angelica. Call me. I’m often around.”

“Okay then,” she says, and steps out into the cold morning air.


	3. winter i

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He always gives her what she wants, and is getting very good at anticipating what she might ask for.
> 
> Or something like that.

Fall turns into winter, and she starts seeing him a few nights a week.

She still can’t put her finger on what it’s all about, but she’s getting closer. Process of elimination and all that. She knew immediately that it wasn’t a domination thing, though that would be the easiest, most cliche explanation. It’s not a midlife crisis, he’s not old enough and certainly doesn’t act it anyway. She’s also dated enough men who think they’re feminists because they’ve fetishized consent to know that that's not it either. The way Thomas demands she ask for what she wants doesn’t feel that way. It's more like a challenge. Like he’s testing her.

It would be easier if he ever said no, but he doesn’t. She doesn’t know what that means.

In the meantime, she keeps asking for things, and he keeps giving them to her.

She asks him what he’s working on, what he’s always writing feverishly on whatever scrap of paper he can find and ignoring her to think about. It makes him uncomfortable, which is why she asked in the first place: he was acting like a dick and she wanted to piss him off a little. But he tells her, haltingly at first - he doesn’t like sharing ideas that he doesn’t consider fully formed yet - about the op-ed considering how to make modern finance compatible with liberty, equality, and the rest is spiralling into what might be a book. With this, at least, Angelica knows what she wants, and asks him to explain, watching him open up under her eyes, fascinated. It ends up being a wonderfully rare easy moment between them, but she still can't help but tuck away some notes on his vulnerability for a rainy day.

She asks him to help her practice her French after he makes fun of her. Well, not outright, as he usually prefers passive aggression. But he takes her to a tiny creperie (they never go anywhere where either of them might be seen) and winces at what she’s always been told is perfect pronunciation, and they watch what he called "French CSPAN" without subtitles and he looks annoyed when she doesn’t react "appropriately" because she doesn’t get the subtleties of a few speeches.

“Jesus, I get it,” she snaps, finally fed up. “Not all of us spent a year writing in France. Has it ever occurred to you to be helpful instead of fucking rude?”

“What was that?” He doesn’t so much as glance away from the screen.

She sighs. “Will you help me?”

Thomas turns to her, smiling, and she ignores the way that makes something tighten in her chest. “Of course I will,” he says easily.

They sit cross legged on his bed, knees brushing, and she repeats carefully after him. He slips in and out of dialects, from street slang he picked up from a friend to the driest academic language she’s ever heard, forcing her to keep up.

She asks him to read a paper she’s working on, which turns into her reworking the conclusion and writing late into the night. He makes her cup after cup of coffee, refills appearing before she even finishes the cup in front of her, until her fingers seize up and she can’t focus. “I don’t want to think,” she begs, and he ties her shaking hands together, loops a tie around her eyes, and reduces her world to nothing but him. It's exactly what she wanted, but didn't have the words to ask for. It fixes everything, her physical senses so overwhelmed she couldn’t keep her mind racing even if she tried. They don't talk about it the next day, and don't do anything like it again.

He always gives her what she wants, and is getting very good at anticipating what she might ask for.

Or something like that.

He mentions her sisters, once. Only once, only in passing, but it shakes her and she leaves immediately. It’s not shocking that he knows, she knows vaguely that he’s acquainted with her father and three pretty daughters don’t tend to go unnoticed by anyone. What he said wasn’t overtly malicious either, she knows when he’s trying to be, and this wasn’t: just an offhand comment, “didn’t you and your sisters ever do that when you were kids?” But she doesn’t want to think about Eliza and Peggy here, never wants to hear their names coming out of his mouth. She doesn’t want them mixed up in, tainted by whatever this is. He never does it again.

She hasn’t told them. They don’t even know that she’s “seeing someone,” not that she’d ever in a thousand years consider Thomas anything like a boyfriend. She still sees them about as often as she had before, which is not enough. Law school does that, and they’re used to her being an overachiever and constantly busy. But they wouldn’t like Angelica seeing him, would fret that he’s too old, isn’t nice enough to her, is taking advantage of her.

She supposes that all of those things may be true, but it’s nothing she doesn’t already know. She isn’t so deluded that she thinks that he loves her and that this is anything like a normal, healthy, sustainable relationship. She never got her hopes up in the first place, so it’s not like she can be disappointed. As for the obvious - the age difference, his general dickishness - well, she knew those things going in, and she knew it was probably a bad idea, but it was at least a well informed bad decision. For all of his drama and high strung perfectionism, he continues to be surprisingly passive with her. He never pushes her to come over, never tries to intrude on her life outside of him. Angelica knows this because she tested him, and still continues to, telling him no and showing up later than she says she will (which she has to make herself do, she’s type A and is always on time everywhere) and he doesn’t seem to care. She does wonder vaguely how he might react if she tried calling herself his girlfriend or showing up at one of his weird coffee shop reading sessions, but she has no interest in doing any of those things so she doesn’t bother.

But Angelica really does genuinely like him. Maybe not in the way that she likes her friends, or other guys she’s dated, but she still does. Thomas is interesting and has a lot of interesting things to say. He challenges her. He can be condescending and patronizing, but not in the same way that most older men are. It doesn’t feel gendered or because of her age, and she watches him do it to everyone he considers himself smarter than, which is everyone. He treats her almost like an equal and demands that much from her. And yeah, he is really fucking good in bed.

All evidence seems to indicate that he genuinely likes her as well. If whatever he feels about her allows for that, that is. She knows for sure he likes when she’s around. He’s kind of lonely, finding it hard to connect with anyone that isn’t on his level. It’s hard to pity him that much, when it’s because of his own arrogance that he doesn’t have a lot of close friends, but she still finds herself reluctant to leave sometimes. He drops a lot of the theatrics that are an incredibly transparent deflection from any kind of intimacy, becomes a little more subdued, his long barrages of information becoming the tiniest bit more excited, more sincere, though he’s still pretty guarded. He has so much rattling around in his head that it makes sense that he’s desperate for an audience. She can tell he likes having someone to throw all his ideas at and likes that she’s smart enough to get most of them, if not all, especially his more outlandish ones. He _loves_ arguing with her, probably because she’s so insistent on never backing down.

She likes it too, if she’s being honest. She likes the version of herself he draws out of her, sharper and smarter and always _on_. They fight over everything, constantly, sometimes lying in bed, laughing with her head resting on his chest; sometimes urgently and existentially, making her reconsider everything she’s ever known; and sometimes it turns so ugly and personal it scares her.

Thomas doesn’t just say things, he announces them, as if every thought that’s ever popped into his head is another one of his self evident truths. When she dares contradict him or says something he thinks is stupid, he looks at her like she’s betrayed him, like Angelica's his star student that suddenly failed a test, offended that she would think saying anything that falls below his impossibly high standards is acceptable. How he manages to convey all of that so vividly by glaring at her with raised eyebrows and a slight pout, she doesn’t understand.

She hates it anyway, and then she hates herself for hating it, for caring what he thinks, and then she hates him, for being so pretentious and obnoxious, and hates herself more, for not glaring back at him. She hates that face so much that she spends hours reading, researching, turning words and arguments over and over in her head until she’s sure she’s got them right before lobbing them at him. She still ends up losing most of the time, but she’s getting there.

\---------

“I have six minutes left of this podcast, you’ll have to entertain yourself until then,” she warns him as she opens the door for him one night.

He makes an annoyed face and tries to yank the headphones out of her ears. She smacks his hand away and reclaims her spot on the couch before he can take up all the space with his annoyingly long legs. Pouting and whining something under his breath, he finally gives in to join her, flipping through one of her law textbooks.

“Did you know there might be a real ninth planet?” she asks him, still excited, when she puts her phone away. “It’s ten times the mass of Earth and takes at least ten thousand years to orbit the Sun. It’s even further than Pluto was. Is? They might call it Persephone.”

“I don’t fuck with space,” Thomas says, shaking his head and squinting at some of her notes. “There’s too much going on out there and no way to even start figuring it out.”

“Come on,” she scoffs, not even bothering to hide how pleased she is she found something that bugs him. “We actually know a lot about it. In the past twenty years alone we’ve mapped a ton of galaxies and filled in some pretty big gaps.”

“Oh, ‘we’ have?” he mocks lightly. She ignores him, long past the point where his sticking on a single ill chosen word of hers bothers her. “ _Scientists_ -” (god, what a pedantic asshole) “-have expanded their little theories with all the information that they’ve found, but space exploration has really only been going on for sixty years or so. It’s like when for millennia humanity was so sure that the Earth was flat and based everything around that. Case in point, for the last hundred years they claimed Pluto was the ninth planet. Then suddenly the definition of planet they’ve always used is wrong and it isn’t. They have no idea what they’re actually looking at and won’t know anything real for a very long time.”

“We aren’t rehashing the subtleties of scientific versus political ‘theory,’ if that’s what you’re trying to do,” she warns. “Fucking around with those half dead plants on your windowsill doesn’t make you a scientist.”

He scowls. “I have an entire farm where I’ve learned quite a lot about the botanical sciences, thank you very much.”

“Fucking around in your greenhouse or whatever you have down there while you underpay people to do the actual farming doesn’t make you a scientist,” she corrects. “Or a farmer.”

“Did you know that people have proposed growing food on the moon? Of all the irresponsible ideas in the world. We’re already dealing with GMOs here, I don’t even want to think about what the fucked up gravity and air composition would do to it.”

“If you really want to think about things we don’t know enough about, go look up what percentage of the deep sea we’ve explored.” He grabs his phone immediately, never one to let a second go by without knowing everything, but Angelica interrupts before he can find the answer himself. “It’s less than five percent. The ocean covers more than seventy percent of the planet we actually live on, and we don’t know shit about it. That should scare you more than some possible unreliable science in outer space.”

“Are you insane? No way. The ocean’s always been here and it hasn’t killed us yet. I know you don’t have a proper appreciation for nature, being from this awful city, but at least try.”

“The ocean has quite literally killed millions of people, Thomas. Maybe billions.”

“I guarantee you that space has a higher mortality rate,” he says, typing rapidly on his phone looking it up. “Okay. Five hundred and thirty six people have been in space, and eighteen have died up there. Three percent. Have three percent of people that come in contact with the ocean died because of it? No.”

“Now who’s using shitty science? Fifty years compared to the entirety of human history. That’s not a valid comparison and you know it.”

“I’m bored of this conversation,” he says flippantly. He can't stand the possibility that he might be wrong, and she hasn't quite figured out how to keep him from misdirecting.

She laughs, knowing how much that'll irritate him. "You're full of shit."

"And you're boring."

“You’re mad because you’re wrong,” she says smugly.

“Sure, Angelica.” He’s back on his phone, tuning her out like he thinks that she needs him to talk to her so bad she’ll back down or apologize. No fucking way.

“Admit that I’m right,” she says.

He pretends he doesn’t hear.

She sits up, throws a leg over his, sits back on his thighs while he continues to pretend to be absorbed in his phone. She isn’t interested in being ignored and kind of wants to see what he’ll do, so she yanks it out of his hands and throws it across the room. It lands on the other couch, like she intended, but he glares at her like it shattered.

“Childish,” he says scornfully. “If you’re that desperate for attention, use your words.”

She fights back the urge to hit him. He really is such a patronizing douchebag sometimes.

“Say I’m right,” she demands.

“So not just attention, then?” he says softly, deadly, but still not “no.” “You need my approval that badly as well?”

He’s tried that one before, and it still stings, but she’s gotten better at not letting it show.

She makes herself smirk at him, weaves a hand in his hair and pulls harder than is strictly necessary. “I don’t need shit from you,” she tells him. She’s pretty sure she means it.

She rises up on her knees, bringing her pelvis flush with his chest, pulling his head back so he has to look up at her.

He starts to make a face so she tightens her grip in his hair. Thomas doesn’t apologize, nothing like that, but he does draw his hands slowly up her thighs, his thumbs dragging along the inside seams of her jeans.

“Right,” he drawls. “Sure you don’t.”

Angelica elects to let that one go and slides down to sit fully on his lap. He’s already hard, like she knew he would be, and exhales sharply when she rests her weight fully on him, not an inch of space between them.

She smiles triumphantly at him, finally letting go of his hair to scrape her nails down the back of his neck. “Now who’s needy?”

“Still you,” he says flatly, but his hands are under her shirt, sweeping up her sides and making her raise her arms so he can get it fully off her.

She grinds down on him and his eyes roll back in his head. “Sure about that?” She doesn’t wait for a response, just leans forward and kisses him, hard and messy and not a little because she wants him to shut up. She pulls back and he chases her mouth the tiniest fraction of a millimeter before he can stop himself and she feels a rush of power.

He stands abruptly, forcing her up with him and throwing her off balance until he steadies her with a half-hearted hand on her back. “Off,” he says, jerking his chin at her pants while he yanks his down and kicks them as far away as he can, like she wasn’t already doing the same.

“Don’t tell me what to do,” she says reflexively, but without any heat behind it. She steps closer, crowding him against the couch and grabs his cock loosely, ghosting her fingers up and down, thumbing lightly at the head. She looks up at him with a teasing smile. “Well?”

He sits back down, grabbing her by the waist and turning her, pulling her down with him so her back is against his chest and her legs are hooked over his. She’s caught off guard for a second, and then forgets to be anything but overwhelmed because his hands are _everywhere_ , roaming all over her, circling a nipple, burning hot on her thigh, spanning her throat, slipping two fingers inside of her somehow all at once.

She exhales heavily, letting her head drop back onto his shoulder. He huffs and takes his hand off her breast to shove her hair out of his face, but she’s too busy trying to get his fingers at the exact right angle to register his whining. He drags his fingers out of her achingly slow, sliding his rough palm and then the pads of his fingers, wet from being inside of her, over her clit and then plunging back inside, the change in sensation making her head spin. She turns her head towards him, plants rough, open mouthed kisses under his jaw. She nips a little and his hips jerk under her, his cock sliding against her entrance and making them both shudder.

“More,” she says into his throat, and feels his adam’s apple bob under her lips as he swallows. She never has to ask him for anything twice; he immediately slides into her, the angle making him feel impossibly deep.

He pumps into her, pulls out, achingly slow, in and out. She squirms slightly, trying to bear down on him harder but she can’t get any leverage, his legs spread just wide enough that only the tips of her toes brush the floor. She makes a little noise, low in her throat, half pleasure and half frustration. “More,” she says again, and his hands tighten on her hips as he slams up into her roughly.

She brings two of her fingers down to her clit, jumping when she rubs lightly at herself. “Jesus _fucking_ Christ,” he groans in her ear, his thrusts stuttering and then speeding up. “Angelica,” he says hoarsely, the muscles in his thighs jumping under her hand. “What do you want?”

She feels incredibly  _aware_ , hearing and feeling and seeing double, like his limbs are hers to command as well, like his words ringing in her ears are hers, too. She reaches up, intending to wipe a sweaty piece of hair out of her eyes and ends up blindly tracing his features, feeling the slight furrow in his brow, his warm, flushed cheeks, his ragged breathing as he sucks her fingers into his mouth, biting down and forcing a low, broken moan out of her.

"Everything," she says. "I want everything."

"Shit," he breathes hot into her ear and wraps one arm over her chest, pressing down on her shoulder and fucking into her impossibly harder. His hand runs up and down her torso compulsively, like he’s trying to calm himself, keep from coming, but she can’t focus on anything but the path it takes, from her stomach over her breast and then brushing over her neck, his fingertips dancing so lightly over her pulse she thinks she might die.

They go down, down, down, over her heaving chest and all the way down to where her wrist rests against her hip where she can't stop rubbing at her clit if she tried. She can feel him watching, feels his breath catch in his chest as he brings his hand up and over her again.

“Thomas,” she says raggedly, grabbing his arm and holding it in place against her chest. She trails her fingers over his wrist, rests them meaningfully over his fingers at the base of her throat and she feels the moment he understands, his hips jerking under hers and a sharp inhale.

“Yeah?”

She nods wildly. “Yes, yes, god, I want you to,” she says, the words tripping over themselves as they tumble out of her, making sure to give him the one thing he’ll never say no to. His long fingers wrap around her throat and squeeze, lightly, barely any pressure at all, but it’s enough for both of them, Thomas biting something into her shoulder while all the air leaves her lungs with something like a sob.

He lets go of her immediately and for a moment she lets herself go boneless against him, catching her breath and listening to him do the same.

She climbs off of him and collapses back onto the floor, legs draped across the couch above her, one of her knees touching his thigh. She raises her arms above her head and stretches, feeling strung out and fizzy.

Angelica yawns and feels an unfamiliar rasp in her throat. She raises a hand to it, feels for any sort of something that might indicate what happened, but she doesn’t find anything. There won’t be bruises tomorrow, he’s very careful to never leave any sort of mark on her. “That was interesting,” she murmurs, out loud but still to herself. “I didn’t know I was into that.”

“I did,” he says lazily, head tipped back and eyes shut.

She props herself up on her elbows. “I’m sorry?”

“Hmm?” He opens one eye. “You’re not hard to read. I didn’t know for sure, but a little more focus on your neck than usual and you were begging for it. Easy. Cause and effect.”

“Oh,” she says lamely. She doesn’t know whether to be freaked out or flattered or… something else. She suspects that he’s trying to piss her off a little, so she doesn’t give him the satisfaction and flops back down on the floor.

Something else occurs to her. “Very scientific of you,” she says casually, a question, a test.

Thomas smiles, looking incredibly pleased. She passed. “I thought so, too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you all so so so so so so much for reading! i had kicked this idea around in my head for a while before writing it, not sure if i could do it right and your lovely words are more than i could have asked for.


	4. winter ii

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She just doesn’t understand how nothing is a big deal to him. From massive wealth, a certified genius, annoyingly good looking, what some might call charming - he’s gotten everything he ever wanted and he refuses to understand or even consider that things might not be that easy for someone else. It’s like one morning he woke up and decided he was entitled to whatever he wanted, that he deserved to win whatever battles he deigned to engage in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a bit of an intermission chapter before the next one, which is my FAVORITE.
> 
> in which other characters exist, too!

Her sisters throw her a party when she turns twenty five. It’s late February, but somehow warm enough for them to gather on the rooftop of her building; a brief respite from the depths of winter.

“Okay, but can we please, please, talk about something real? I’m all theory-ed out, I haven’t thought about anything except various articles of the Constitution in days,” Angelica says, kicking her feet up to rest on Peggy’s lap in the chair next to her. “Someone tell me the latest dumb shit Marco Rubio said or about Hillary’s embarrassing usage of emojis.”

“No can do, boo,” Alex says. “You and I are in the same boat. I did read a really interesting article on this girl who’s been documenting all the continuity errors in Keeping Up with the Kardashians by using their social media.”

Angelica likes Alex, who she met on her first day of law school and always had a vague sort of crush on that they were both too busy to do anything about. He’s smart and brave and as wildly ambitious as she is, with a different and interesting perspective that comes from being self taught. He tells her when they first meet - a story he tells everyone, she soon finds out - that one day he found Plato’s _Republic_ and it all changed for him. She doesn’t believe for a second that a five year old, as he tells it, taught himself English to read Greek philosophy, but she indulges him.

“Wait, really?” she asks, intrigued.

“The blog is called ‘Keeping Up with the Kontinuity Errors,’ and please, I can’t listen to him talk for one more minute about it,” Lafayette, another classmate of hers who shares an apartment with Alex and a few other of the guys she knows, says with fond exasperation. “I’ll send you the link.”

“Please do,” Angelica laughs. “Now come on, can we please pool our not inconsiderable intellects and drag someone to hell and back? You know how that makes me happy and it’s my birthday.”

“Okay, you pick,” John prompts from across the circle. “Politicians on Snapchat or cynical rich people who make money on failing schools.”

“Rich people are all idealists,” Alex says dismissively, pouring another shot or four into his cup, his cheeks flushed even in the cool air. John, a rich idealist, throws the remnants of a lime wedge at him.

“What do you mean?” Peggy says doubtfully. “All of Dad’s rich friends are big ‘that’s just the way it is’ guys.”

“No, no, that’s exactly what that means. They think the world is awful because no one’s realized that they’re the one that should be in charge. You know what I mean, all, ‘if I had my way, things would be great and blah blah fuckin blah,” Alex says. “They really think that if everyone was as smart as they were, then they would be successful too. It’s not even just the Republicans! Rich, liberal idealists that have never had to make a hard choice in their life are the biggest fuckers in the world. They talk shit about New York and Chicago and bumfuck fucking Oklahoma, so aghast that these other places don’t provide the kind of youth programming, pensions, what the fuck ever that their town does. But their rich ass suburb has enough property tax revenue that they can do whatever they want. They don’t need to choose between buses for the schools or a mental health clinic, keeping the snow plows running or cultural competency training for the police department. They look at young kids from who have kids at fifteen and are so self righteously pitying about it, all sad about how it’s such a shame that these poor kids don’t have good sex ed at their schools, why doesn’t anyone do anything about it? They have no idea that the school district has no fucking money and has to choose between that and breakfast for kids that don't get to eat at home. They’ve never had to make a hard choice, never had to pick the lesser of two evils. And then they have the nerve, obsessed with ideological purity as they are, to look down their noses at people that do, at people who take hard votes on imperfect bills because there’s one line in there that will make all the difference for the people who need it the most."

Angelica's about to chime in when Alex makes the exact point on the tip of her tongue. "Do you know that Dodd-Frank almost failed because some douche refused to vote for it because he thought it compromised too much with the banks?" he says, disgusted. "So they had to go get votes from a Republican, and therefore had to water it down even further. You have to compromise to get things done, you can’t just wash your hands of it and call half the country idiots and whine that nothing gets done. They’re wrong, of course they’re wrong, but they’re still there and you have to get what you can out of it.”

“Are you saying that working people don’t care about ideology? That seems pretty elitist,” John says, still a little bitter at having his radical politics questioned.

“John, you know you’re my favorite southern good ol’boy, don’t pout,” Alex says to snickers from the group. “But what poor person have you ever heard having time to debate whether social welfare is compatible with American democracy? They’re too busy needing it to survive to debate points that we decided on a hundred years ago,” he says, working himself up again. “These assholes would rather talk about bullshit like ‘universal income’ and ‘the complexities of liberty’ and what it all means,” he scoffs, with devastating air quotes, “instead of focusing on something that might actually get done and make life even the tiniest bit easier for people. And it’s not that those things aren’t important, but it’s such bullshit to waste time debating why we should or shouldn’t have welfare programs when we could be actually improving and streamlining them and making it better for everyone. All the ideas in the world aren't worth shit if no one does anything about it.”

“Wow,” Angelica says. It’s been a long time since she’s heard anyone be that open, unguarded, and passionate about something they believe in. It’s almost dizzying.

“Yeah,” Eliza echoes, back from opening another bottle of wine. She looks awestruck. She’s met him before in passing, but the full Alex experience tends to do that to people.

What he doesn’t tend to do is shut up, actually stop talking for once in his life, and stare back. He’s standing, Angelica realizes with a start. Either she’s drunker than she realized or he got up to pace at some point. Probably both.

They stare at each other for a long moment, both too dumbstruck or stupid or scared to just go for what they want.

“Eliza, this is Alex,” she says, grabbing the bottle from Eliza and pushing her gently towards him. “Alex, this is my sister, Eliza.”

He clears his throat, shifting his weight from foot to foot awkwardly. “Hi.”

Eliza smiles, and Angelica’s heart soars.

\---------

Thomas publishes an op-ed about free speech. He doesn’t tell her about it, of course, she finds it in the paper one morning when he’s sleeping late in her bed. It’s written in his trademark style, deceivingly simple rhetoric containing layers and layers of brilliance. As usual, she agrees with the larger arguments but is taken aback by some of the details, particularly when he spends a paragraph warning against “anti-intellectual censorship” on college campuses. It’s nothing she isn’t prepared for - she's used to him disappointing her sometimes. When she reaches the conclusion she has to stop reading entirely when she finds a phrase of her own:

_There is no legitimate basis for encroaching on the free exchange of ideas. Because an idea is simply information, and information is necessarily neutral, ideas cannot be held responsible for any actions they may or may not inspire. Governments may not like the consequences, but there is nothing good or bad inherent in a concept itself. Do we hold Locke accountable for a thief believing that his labor entitles him to the hubcaps off your car? What others do with it is their own unique interpretation, owing nothing and deriving nothing from the original beyond the initial reading._

That’s hers, that’s a phrase she’s heard come out of her own mouth, kicked around in her mind for a few hours when considering intellectual property, that she’s almost certain she’s used in a paper. Maybe even her fucking thesis from undergrad. Ironic, that she’s so upset that he used her words about how no one can really own ideas. She makes herself read the rest of it, and then rereads slowly, carefully scanning for something else, heart beating loud in her ears. She doesn’t find anything, though she can hear every word in his voice, remembering a few nights when he tried out the arguments on her.

Not for the first time, Angelica regrets not telling anyone about whatever it is that she and Thomas are doing. She’s so incredibly angry and the only person she can talk to about it is him.

She decides not to wait for him to wake up, grabs the newspaper and goes down the hall to her bedroom. “I’m not your fucking muse,” she says loudly.

“What?” He stirs, turns over and looks at her. “Did I ask you to be?”

She throws the paper at him, which is satisfying, but she regrets looking like a soap star. “You used my words.”

Thomas sits up, brow knitted warily, and grabs his glasses off her nightstand. She watches him read the underlined sentence, face carefully blank. “So I did. That wasn’t my intention.”

“Don’t ever do that again,” she seethes. She wants him to deny it, wants to start a fight to justify why she’s so angry. “Those are mine. That was my idea.”

“Angelica, I didn’t do it on purpose. I talked about this with you for hours, it slipped in subconsciously.”

“So what, that’s why you keep me around? To listen to all your bullshit ideas, for ‘inspiration?” she snarls.

“I don’t ‘keep’ you anywhere. We’re literally in _your_ bedroom right now,” he says, rolling his eyes. “Don’t play dumb. It’s beneath you.”

“It’s still my idea, that you used, and you just admitted to using me to help you write this.”

“Are you serious?” He’s almost laughing outright now and it makes her see red. “How many times have you asked me to read a paper you’re working on for school? Or talked over something you learned in class? It’s not a credit thing, it’s what intelligent people do.”

“This is different,” she insists.

“Please explain how, and it has to be a better reason than your feelings being hurt.”

“I won’t let you take credit for my work.”

“What work?” he says acidly. “You don’t do anything original. You wrote your little thesis three years ago and do your law review, but you stay well within the bounds of established thought. You’re smart, but you’re not inventive. Publicly, at least. _I_ know you have your own actual thoughts and theories. But you don’t do anything about it. You can’t act like I’ve ‘taken credit’ for something you won’t claim as your own.”

“Fuck you.” She’s furious about the op-ed, that he’s right, that he won’t give her the fight that would make her feel better. She feels like a child, swinging impotently at someone holding her carelessly at arm’s length. What is she supposed to do, _ask_ him to get in a screaming match with her?

“Okay,” he shrugs. “If that makes you feel better, say that.”

“You know I can’t publish my own stuff.”

“No, I don’t.”

“You know why,” she says desperately. “No one will take it seriously. You know that.”

“No,” he repeats, “I don’t. Write something. Send it to someone. Put it on the Internet. You’re smarter than most of the assholes that get published anyway.”

“Like it’s that easy?”

He gets up, blatantly ignoring her, and when he comes back with a cup of coffee he’s giving her that fucking face again. “I don’t understand why you’re acting like it’s never occurred to you. It’s certainly not impossible, especially not for someone of your intellect.”

“I just told you, I can’t,” she says slowly, imitating his pedantic tone that so pisses her off. He’s sprawled back out in her bed like he owns the place and in that moment she hates him. “If I have a shot at any jobs or clerkships down the line I can’t risk putting something out there that might risk that.”

“So you’d want to work somewhere that didn’t share your values?” he asks, in the same tone someone might ask if she wanted to shave her head.

“Well, no,” she qualifies, because of course he’s right. “But I might not be able to work in a place I love right away.”

“You have every option in the world, stop pretending like you don’t. Why are you really upset?” he demands. This is where a boyfriend would hold her, would comfort her, trying to help soothe whatever’s wrong with her. To Thomas, it’s something to fix, a weakness to eradicate so no one else can exploit it. She can see his growing unease; he’s uncomfortable with conversations that turn too personal, gets flustered when there’s not a debate about taxes or philosophy or whatever they use as a proxy to fight about stuff like this.

“When I apply for jobs or when I try to do things in the future people might see it.”

“Which is the point, I’d imagine.”

She takes a deep breath, why can't she explain it, why doesn't he understand? “They might read it and disagree and think that I’m stupid and -”

“That would never happen,” he interrupts dismissively.

“Yes, it could,” she says.

He shakes his head. “No one would ever think that you’re not smart. That’s not possible.”

“Of course it is,” she says hysterically. “No one takes young women seriously, and putting out original thought is scary, it’s terrifying, and of the ten people that will read it, half will disagree just because of who I am and the others might not like it and then I’m finished, I’m that idiot with the dumb article on fucking HuffPo or wherever else will take it and then my career is ruined. I'll never get anything I've worked so hard for.”

He makes her feel crazy for getting nervous about things, for the way she builds things up in her head. She gets anxious before pressing send on emails to her professors, has to control her breathing before going to law review meetings, fidgets when she sits in meetings at her internship. She’s almost never lost, never been denied, never been rejected, but she still gets nervous, on edge, desperate with want. Especially around him, as much as she wishes she didn’t, though he answers her every query with a simple “okay,” or “yes,” or “of course, Angelica, why are you freaking out?” that cuts through her panic like a knife and makes her feel stupid for ever worrying at all. Like pounding on a door to realize it was unlocked the entire time.

She just doesn’t understand how nothing is a big deal to him. From massive wealth, a certified genius, annoyingly good looking, what some might call charming - he’s gotten everything he ever wanted and he refuses to understand or even consider that things might not be that easy for someone else. It’s like one morning he woke up and decided he was entitled to whatever he wanted, that he deserved to win whatever battles he deigned to engage in.

It makes her crazy, makes her hate him, makes her _jealous_ , so much so she can barely breathe. She wants it, whatever that voice in his head is telling him, that makes him so sure he’ll be successful, who cares what idiots think about you, obviously you’re smart enough for this.

He blinks at her, bewildered. “Angelica, that’s insane. You would never write for anywhere as trash as HuffPo.”

“Why can’t you take anything seriously? This is my life, not another one of your stupid mind games,” she says angrily, moving to leave the room. He catches her wrist and yanks her back in, makes her sit down heavily on the bed.

“I am being serious, so fucking listen,” he snaps. She twists her wrist free and they glower at each other before he speaks again. “You are not a stupid person. You would never write something stupid or publish something stupid. If someone were to think it so, that’s their problem and not yours. You are smart enough to get whatever you want. The only thing standing in your way is you.”

His little speech could be comforting in someone else’s mouth, someone capable of delivering it with even the slightest hint of warmth. But he's harsh and cruel, and he pins her in place with a heavy stare, furious that she doesn’t understand.

“It’s not that easy,” she insists. “It’s not.”

“It is,” he says bluntly. “Don’t act like you’re other people. You’re not like them. You’re better.”

“What does that even mean?” She can't decide whether she wants him to be right or wrong.

"Of all the ridiculous questions," Thomas mutters, annoyed, under his breath, and then his hand is heavy on her shoulder, pressing her into the bed, his lips smothering the “why” on her own.

He doesn’t wait for her to shove him off, the way she still vaguely wants to, but rolls on top of her and settles an arm on either side of her shoulders. All her thoughts are still running circles in the back of her mind - she shouldn’t let him win this easily, he thinks she’s weak for giving in, he manipulated her into wanting this in the first place - but she lets go, lets herself lose her train of thought and not worry about all the _whys_ and complicated feelings and frustrated ambitions. Most of his weight’s resting on her, his arms at least in theory caging her in, and she knows she should hate it but she finds herself arching into him, savoring the way that the pressure on her body dulls the pounding in her head from a hurricane to something she can easily shove away. So she kisses him back, for real, and lets him think that he’s winning, takes what he wants to give her. For just a few minutes, she doesn’t want to care.

He starts getting desperate before she does, hips grinding against her, fingers tightening just this side of too hard in her hair, and isn’t that interesting. She gives him a shove and he goes willingly, dragging her with him and then she’s looming over him and they’re both staring at each other, trying to see into the other’s head, reaching for the knife to twist.

“Thomas,” she says, shoving his loose pants down to his knees, “I-”

“What do you think I’ve been trying to tell you for the past six months?” He rubs agitatedly at his forehead, and it’s not only because she’s fisting his cock. “You're better. You don’t need to act like someone less intelligent than you are. You don’t.”

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” she says, quietly but firmly.

He frowns, looking like he’s desperate to say something else, but he doesn’t. “Fine.”

She slides down onto him and lets everything fall out of her mind, keeping only the realization that she won.

\---------

It’s funny, when she thinks about it, that it was that morning when Angelica realizes for sure that she doesn’t love him. She probably never will.

But she keeps coming back, keeps reading to him from books she lays on his chest, his hips between her thighs, using a finger to trace a favorite turn of phrase on his stomach. He never talks during these intervals, not even when one day she reads some of his own words to him and tells him all the ways she disagrees.

It fascinates her. He’s usually so obsessed being right, so eager to let her know when she’s wrong, but he just lays there quietly and watches her tear his words to shreds. It makes her bold, makes her go deeper, testing the bounds of his patience. She comes close, they both know she does, but she stops short. They both know that, too.

His study of banking has indeed become a book, trying to pinpoint the line where it crosses from a necessary function of society to a threat to the middle and lower classes. A few times she leaves in the morning for class and comes back in the evening after her internship to find him sitting exactly where she left him, only the pages turned to the other side of the book in his hand and the stack of pages covered in his cramped writing indicating that anything happened at all.

She’s anxious to read it - almost five months of this hasn’t dulled her appreciation for his work. She’s also grateful for the way it puts them mostly on safe ground. There’s not a lot of opportunities for Thomas to disappoint her with the random appearances of his occasionally disturbing politics and he’s more forgiving than usual when she doesn’t know the intricacies of credit, interest, and swaps. She likes that he’s chosen this to focus on, an actual real life topic that could do some actual good. Usually he frustrates her, the way that he usually has no interest in actually doing anything.

He sits, either here in the ivory tower of his apartment or tucked away in his massive Virginia estate, and builds entire worlds in his mind rather than engage with the one outside. If he took even part of that energy and focused outward, shared his brilliance with others, put one of his plans into action - she can’t even imagine what that could be.

She tries: encourages him to actually take the meetings with elected officials that call him, shows him fellowships that allow for experimentation in public schools, points out start ups that could use a brain like his at the helm.

Thomas could be great, even greater than he is now, and Angelica could make him so. She tells him this one night, and he looks at her with a sphinx like smile and says only, “I am sure that you could.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am literally unable to help myself when it comes to ham/eliza, so ENJOY.
> 
> http://kuwtke.tumblr.com/
> 
> also it's true re: dodd-frank. a vote for clouture, granted, but still. russ feingold, d-wi. can you tell i did political theory in school? writing this has been so fun.
> 
> thank you so so so much for reading and commenting and enjoying this as much as i do!


	5. spring

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maybe he wants an out. Well, she won’t give it to him. He’ll have to ask for it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> somehow this became longer, porn-ier, and sadder than it began. thank you so, so much for reading!
> 
> * someone pointed out that i should have a warning here for iffyness during sex. which is a great point! things get a little Yikes around the end, and while i wrote it and intend it to be consensual, just flavored with the same kind of power dynamics and general fucked up ness that the rest of their relationship has, death of the author and all that and i wouldn't want anyone to be caught off guard. feel free to message me on [tumblr](http://iaintinapatientphase.tumblr.com/) if you have more questions before reading. or you can honestly skip from when sex things begin to the line break at the bottom. hope this helps!

Angelica looks critically at Thomas one spring evening from where she sits on his couch reading. He’s making dinner, pretending not to gloat over proving her wrong when they started arguing pointlessly over world capitals earlier. She decides that he could probably use a little deflation of the ego.

“Do you know how warm it’ll be tomorrow?”

“High of fifty one, low of forty six,” he answers. He has a freakish obsession with the temperature. “Why?”

She pretends not to understand. “What?”

“Why?”

“Oh,” she says. “I was planning to go to the library after class and if I’ll be there late, I’ll probably need my heavier coat.”

“Probably,” he agrees. “With wind chill it’ll be closer to forty seven tomorrow. You coming by after?”

She looks down at her book, hides a smile. That was even easier than she had hoped. “No, I have a date,” she says casually, keeping her focus on the pages and straining to see his reaction in her peripheral vision.

He stops stirring whatever he’s making. “Yeah?” he says quickly, when the silence is just on the edge of too long.

“Yeah,” she repeats, flipping a page a little before she’s ready for dramatic effect. “You’re around Friday, right? I’ll come over then.” She doesn’t dare look at him. She can’t risk him seeing how nervous she is if she’s going to get the response she wants.

Even if she doesn’t look up from her reading, she can feel his eyes on her.

“Okay,” he says finally. “Food’s ready.”

\---------

So she goes on a few dates and keeps seeing him. Has her cake and fucks it too, if you will.

“You should be with someone who worships you,” Thomas tells her, later that night, a rare moment of sincerity that makes her remember the dead wife he doesn’t talk about. Some things, even for them, are off limits. “Who you can dazzle. Who’ll look at you like you’re the single greatest, most extraordinary thing that’s ever existed.”

That person isn’t me, he doesn’t say. He doesn’t have to.

The other guys are nice, smart, decent men that she knows from school or through friends or whatever. She flirts with the idea of getting a drink with one of the partners at her internship, but she figures she’s pretty covered on the “having ill advised affairs with older men” portion of her life. She goes to dinner, to pretentious bars, spends one actually enjoyable afternoon at the MOMA, and doesn’t go on a second date or sleep with any of them.

Angelica’s mature enough to admit that it’s probably about Thomas. It’s not that she thinks that whatever they’re doing will someday lead to two kids and a picket fence, or that she would even want to, but he’s kind of… opened her eyes, in a way. Most of the guys she meets are simply not enough for her. Her standards aren’t new, they aren’t because of him. They were always there, holding her back from second and third dates and never being able to really explain it. She knows it’s ridiculously conceited, but that doesn’t stop it from being true.

If she were to sketch out her ideal significant other, they’d probably be a lot like him. More age appropriate, for sure, and obviously less of a complete douchebag. With a real job and actual goals beyond proving that he’s smarter than whatever target he sets his sights upon that day. Someone more comfortable with basic human interaction.

But smart like him. Engaging like he is. Able to give her that feeling of being recognized, understood, _seen_ by someone on her level like he does.

Everyone’s always treated Angelica like she’s special, so impressed that she got an A on her elementary school math tests, cooing over her when she would read between her father’s campaign stops. “Wow, that Angelica Schuyler’s pretty smart, isn’t she?” they’d say, smiling at her like she was some rare oddity, something shiny and different. “That Angelica, she’ll do big things,” or “Angelica’s got such a bright future,” always with just enough surprise to make her skin crawl.

Angelica knows she’s almost always the smartest in the room. She doesn’t know why that’s so surprising to people, never understood why being smart and ambitious and wanting things was so unusual. It never occurred to her to not to.

Thomas gets it, even if he takes it to the extreme, beyond confidence to arrogance. He takes her brilliance for granted, like no shit she’s smart, why wouldn’t she be? _Of course_ she’s head of the law review, _obviously_ she has a real shot at clerking at the Supreme Court next year. She mentions off hand once that she’s ranked first in her class and he just nods and goes back to explaining the mess of statistics he's telling her about. He makes it clear he would never deign to speak to someone wasn’t on his level, and therefore she must be. It’s astoundingly condescending and weirdly comforting.

To Thomas, intelligence is literally power, not just a way to get what he wants but his justification for demanding it. Angelica's always known that, on an abstract level, but now she's starting to _see_ , to recognize the power she has just by being who she is. She's not sure that she should want it, but that doesn't stop her from imagining all the things she might do with it.

\---------

She finds herself at the theater, of all the ridiculous places for a first date, with Matt from her writing class in undergrad. He’s boring, but she didn’t have other plans, and it’s kind of cute that he thought that tickets to _Macbeth_ would impress her. She finds old white guy playwrights dull and overdone, but she can hear Eliza’s voice scolding her, reminding her that it’s the thought that counts, so she plays along and doesn't even look at her phone all that often. She even goes twenty minutes without responding to Thomas's text, a single question mark.

 _"Can't, busy tonight,"_ she sends back, shoves her phone into her bag, and hears a loud burst of laughter that makes her blood run cold. Whatever Matt’s saying fades into the background as she scans the lobby for the source, feeling sick when she finds it.

Thomas turns around, still holding his phone in one hand, meets her eyes with a dangerous smile. He’s wearing real pants for once in his life and an actual button down with only a small ink stain on under his favorite velvet blazer instead of a t-shirt. She glances down as he walks between a group in conversation to come over to them - there it is. The rattiest, most beat up loafers she’s ever seen, his carefully chosen sign to the world that he does not care at all what they think. She sighs. He is so incredibly childish.

“So sorry to intrude,” he lies, “but I’m a friend of Angelica’s father, and it would be so horrifically impolite if I didn’t say hello. How’ve you been, Ang? Law school, right?”

“That’s right, Mr. Jefferson,” she says, giving him her best, most poisonous smile. “And you? Working on any notable follow up to the Declaration?”

Part of her thrills at the sour look that crosses his face for a split second. He never really got over the low sales of _Notes_. “I’ve got a few things in the works. Thomas Jefferson,” he says, shaking Matt’s hand.

“Matthew Hawkins,” he replies.

“Angie’s date, I presume? Be good or I’ll call the senator!” He laughs. “How’d you get her to go out with you? This one’s top of her class, you know. On track to be very, very rich someday. Beating away guys with a stick, or so I hear. You must be something truly special.”

“Oh, well, I don’t know,” Matt says, flustered. “But-”

“Just as long as you know exactly who you’re out with.” Thomas stares Angelica dead in the eyes. “Exactly everything she’s capable of.”

“Well,” Angelica replies, “you know how I feel about your opinion of me, Mr. Jefferson. But we should be going. Show’s about to start.”

“Right, the show,” he says archly. “What brings you two kids to the theatre? Are you a big Shakespeare guy, pal?”

“Gotta be honest, not really,” Matt admits, relaxing, clearly thinking that Thomas’s over-casual tone is meant to put him at ease. “But I’m always up for trying new things, you know? And I did like reading _Romeo and Juliet_ in high school.”

“Ah, yes,” he says, disgusting smile somehow growing even wider. Matt doesn’t know him well enough to see his total, gleeful, self satisfaction, the way he’s reveling in being a complete asshole. “The wonders of our public school system never cease.”

Angelica glares at him. “Anyway, Thomas,” she says tightly, not bothering to correct herself, “we’d better go find our seats. Have a good night.”

“Y’all enjoy the show,” he says, waving lazily. “Nice to see you, Angelica.”

“Who was that guy? He looks familiar,” Matt asks, twisting his head over his shoulder to try to get another look.

“Thomas Jefferson,” she says, keeping her voice even and her steps light. “He wrote the Declaration of Independence. That thing right before the last presidential election.”

She can see the light bulb go off in his head. “Ohhhh, right! That makes sense. I was only twenty that year, I wasn’t really paying attention to politics.”

Angelica makes herself laugh. She won’t let Thomas ruin this. She is on a _nice_ date with a _nice_ guy that thinks that she’s great and doesn’t demand everything she has to hold a conversation. He can’t ruin everything.

He does.

She can’t focus on the play. She slips out during the second act, not bothering to text him but knowing she’ll find him, tries a few doors at random until she finds him in a staircase.

“Ah. Angelica,” he says smoothly, like this is a normal thing that adults do.

“You don’t even like Shakespeare,” she says accusingly.

“Neither do you.”

“Why are you here?” There’s no way he could have known. She knows that, knows it’s true, but she can’t stop herself from wondering. She can, and does, stop herself from asking. Never in a million years will she give him that.

“A friend invited me. What are _you_ doing here?” he asks, dramatically casual, fiddling with his cufflinks, but it’s been long enough that she recognizes the tension in his shoulders. “That can’t possibly be your date, can it?”

“He is,” she says defensively. She chooses her next words carefully, aiming for the one thing Thomas will never try to best someone at. “He’s very nice.”

Predictably, he rolls his eyes. He takes a step towards her. In this tiny, narrow old staircase, even when she steps back he’s still within arm's reach.

“Seriously?” he sneers. “He’s not remotely good enough for you.”

“What are you talking about? Why do you even care?” Her back hits the wall and he steps into her space, taking up all of her oxygen even with no part of their bodies touching.

“You aren’t interested in him. Not really,” he says softly, and she hates the way he’s one hundred percent right.

“So what?” she says. “It’s still none of your fucking business. This isn’t about you.”

He has nothing to say to that, like she knew he wouldn’t, just traces one long finger over her collarbone. She tilts her chin up to give him better access, encourages him. Lets him dangle his fingers over the fire.

“Angelica-”

“I don’t love you,” she says savagely.

He tips his head to the side, considering. “Why would you?” He leans in, hands braced on the wall on either side of her shoulders, stopping with his mouth a breath away from her throat. “Tell me to stop.”

Maybe he wants an out. Well, she won’t give it to him. He’ll have to ask for it.

“No.”

He bites down on her neck, sucking harshly, leaving a mark that’ll be impossible to cover up when she goes back inside to her date. She gasps and her head falls back against the wall with a dull thud, making her head spin even faster.

He drags his tongue over the mark, and she knows he’s pleased with himself but she can’t figure out why. She knows that he’s not jealous, not possessive, that at the end of the day this has nothing to do with her, that it's all about the little games he plays to remind himself that he's smarter and more capable than everyone he meets, but she doesn't know why he's chosen this to get mad about.

“Oh,” she breathes, heart beating wildly in her chest. “You really want everything I do to be about you. You really think it can be.”

He meets her eyes but doesn’t reply, and she suddenly can’t stand to be looking at him. She yanks him closer by the shirt, shoves their mouths together in a brutal, bruising kiss, arching into him and feeling a rush of triumph when he groans into her mouth. She lets it go another minute, then pulls back, pushes him off of her and tries to fix her hair.

Without another word, he heads for the door.

“Thomas.”

He turns around.

“Come over later.”

He pauses. She wonders if this will be the first time he tells her “no,” almost wishes it’ll be.

“Okay,” he says finally, and then he’s gone.

She doesn’t bother trying to cover up whatever the fuck he did to her before going back to her seat. If she knows him, and she does, she won’t be able to. She’s been gone far too long for any decent excuse, and the point of this whole thing, which was to sleep with someone that isn’t him, is definitely not happening anymore.

Matt looks at her, concerned, when she comes back. “Everything alright?”

“Yeah,” she lies. “My sister called.”

He accepts that easily and turns back to the stage. Angelica tries to focus without much luck.

When the lights come up, she puts her coat back on as quick as she can and tries to arrange the hood to cover her neck. Matt looks at her a little strangely but doesn’t say anything, doesn’t seem to notice.

“Listen,” she says, unable to meet his eyes as they walk out of the theater. “I have to go. My sister called earlier and needs help with something.”

“Okay,” he says, a little disappointed but easily enough. “Can I call you some time?”

You can, but I won’t answer, she’s tempted to tell him. “Sure,” she says and steps into the street to grab a cab.

Matt hurries to open the door for her, and she finds herself smiling genuinely. He really is very sweet. She feels bad that she doesn’t like him more. “Thanks,” she says, and kisses him lightly on the cheek before leaving him behind.

\---------

Thomas isn’t there when she gets back to her apartment. She’s both relieved and disappointed. She doesn’t want to wait any longer, wants to face whatever’s going to happen head on and get it over with.

She stands in her entryway for a few minutes, waiting, before giving up and going to the kitchen.

Getting drunk sounds nice, even if she wants to be at full capacity whenever he turns up. She stares critically at the wine bottles on top of the fridge, considers the half full bottle of gin in her freezer. Fuck it, she decides. She’s made enough bad decisions lately, and after seven months she doesn’t need to be sober to match him. She yanks the ice cold bottle out and takes a drink, relishing the way it burns all the way down.

The door opens. He must be losing his shit, she realizes with a smile, if he didn't make her wait very long at all.

Angelica listens to his footsteps come down the hallway, takes another drink and watches him come into full view, his hair still fucked up from her hands. The lazy, cocky posture that she’s used to seeing on him is gone; he looks wound up. She was right, he’s visibly freaking out.

Another sip out of the bottle, and she feels hot, like pouring gasoline on a fire. He turns his head, looks at her, studies her with dark, unreadable eyes and a stubborn set to his mouth that gives away more than he’d like. She holds the bottle out to him, and he crosses the room silently, takes it out of her hand without touching her at all, studies her for a moment before taking a long drink.

“Drinking already, I see. He was that awful?” he says snidely, like he can’t help himself.

“Don't play dumb. I’ve been seeing other people for a while. You know that.” She looks up at him, crossing her arms over her chest. “Why are you so pissed now?”

“You may be seeing other people, but you’re not fucking them,” he says, typically sidestepping her question.

She frowns. “You don’t know that.” He does, apparently, but she doesn’t know how.

He huffs a little laugh, then his hand is up her skirt, the velvet of his jacket ghosting smooth over her thighs as she lets her legs open the slightest bit. He tugs the fabric of her underwear aside, smirking when he feels how wet she already is, slips in two fingers and curls, harshly, immediately, not giving her time to adjust. She bites down hard on her lip, forcing herself not to cry out, trying to keep herself from grinding against his hand.

“Yes, I do,” he says smugly. He twists his fingers, trying to get her to lose it, looking annoyed when she doesn’t.

“So what?” she asks, fighting to keep her voice steady as he presses his entire palm against her, grinds the heel of his hand exactly how every nerve is screaming for it. “That doesn’t mean I don’t intend to.”

“No, you don’t,” he says blithely, takes his palm away, doesn’t touch her except for the two fingers moving achingly slow in and out of her. Her body tries to shift, tries to get more, but she makes herself stay still.

“Thomas,” she says, slipping her voice low and grinning when his rhythm stutters the slightest bit, when it gets his thumb rubbing at her clit exactly how she wanted. She lets her eyes droop closed, her head tip back against the cabinet, loosens her tight grip on the counter a fraction. He still seems relatively unbothered, and she’s getting more wound up by the minute, keeps losing her train of thought and having to focus entirely on keeping herself from begging for more. It’s so good that she’s tempted to say screw it, fight with him later and be satisfied with the knowledge that she pissed him off this much in the first place. Then he hooks his fingers and she can’t stop herself from whimpering, her whole body twitching. He leans into her just a little harder and she can feel the smugness radiating off of him, the way he thinks he’s won, and she can’t let it go.

“Are you jealous?” she asks casually. No answer. Thomas is being withholding now, refusing to respond and hoping that she’ll get anxious in the silence. It used to work, but now she finds it more tedious than anything. “Because it’s okay if you are,” she adds. She opens one eye, studies his face critically, trying to decide how much further to push. “Are you mad that I’m seeing other people?” she presses, and he must not like how even her voice is because he ratchets up the pressure and fuck, that feels good. She falls into it for a minute, pulling him closer and tilting her face up for a kiss that’s really a dare. He gives it to her anyway, surprisingly gentle for the demanding, achingly good movements of his fingers.

“Mmm, no,” she hums against his lips. “You’re not. You still think I’d rather be with you.” It’s a dangerous line Angelica’s crossed with that. They’ve never outright admitted that they do anything that could be considered some kind of a relationship. They’ve always danced around it, acting like they hang out with each other as some kind of last resort, that the constant sex just happens, unplanned and unexpected by both of them. Anything else would be admitting that they might actually like each other, and that would be too big a weapon to put in the other’s hands.

“And I’m supposed to believe that that’s not true.” His laugh is low, dark, and hits something deep inside of her. “Then what the fuck are you doing here?”

She shakes her head. “It’s not true.”

“Sure,” he laughs, and drops to one knee and attacks her with his mouth.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” she hisses, unable to keep from squirming, resting a leg on his shoulder and pulling him closer. The lightest suction, his tongue curling inside her and she’s right fucking there, the tension in her stomach coiled unbelievably tight. He doesn’t stop, just moves, mouth skating around where she wants it, fingers pressing insistently inside her keeping her trembling on the edge. “Come on,” she moans, kicking him in the back a little.

“Answer the question,” he says and the vibrations of his voice send a white hot pang through her. “Why are you here?”

“This is my apartment, you motherfucker,” she hisses as he sucks long and hard on her clit and she does her best not to pass out.

“Then why am I here? Why aren’t you off faking it for whatever dumbass you let take you out this week?” He’s really giving it his best effort, his lips and tongue somehow everywhere at once, and the effects are _devastating_. She can barely keep her eyes open, and if she wasn’t fighting with everything she had to stay upright and snarking at him she’d be an incoherent mess. There are many reasons that she’s here, not the least of which is that he’s very, very good at this. That doesn’t mean he’s getting the answer he wants.

“Maybe I don’t want to be,” she snaps, trying not to think about the way every muscle in her body is coiled tight, screaming for release. “Why do you care? It has nothing to do with you.”

He ignores her, twisting his tongue inside of her and dragging it out slowly, carefully, running along that spot inside of her and stealing the breath out of her chest.

She can feel the next step in front of her, her body rushing headlong like muscle memory. Angelica knows what comes next, what he expects her to do, what she still kind of wants to do. This is the part where she’s supposed to come screaming and then snark at him, yank the reins back, shove him into her bed or against the wall or down on the floor so she can fuck him like she’s trying to kill him.

It would feel so good, fighting a battle she knows she can win. But it's not enough for her anymore.

So she refuses, shoving him off of her before she can come.

She can tell how thrown he is instantly. His brow furrows before his face goes entirely blank but for his wild eyes. He stands up fully, hand wiping his mouth absentmindedly (and fuck her if that still isn’t stupid hot) and she can feel herself being examined, studied, dissected as he tries to figure out why she isn’t doing what he wants.

She realizes, with a growing sense of horror, that she’s never seen him make that face before. In all this time, she’s apparently never gone off script, never surprised him, never done anything but what Thomas expected her to do. What he wanted her to do. God, she knew he was playing with her, that he got off on the manipulation of it all, but she never knew it went that far. She thought she knew enough to sidestep it, that her actions were her own. All the times she thought she was saying no, that she thought she was in control vanish instantly, replaced by a sinking pit of dread in her stomach.

What is wrong with him? With her? How didn’t she know how deep it went? Is anything her own anymore?

Every sane impulse, every rational part of her is screaming at her to leave, to kick him out, to never fucking speak to him ever again. But that would be giving in. That would be losing. That would mean that he won whatever game they’re playing here, and that is never happening ever again.

“Angelica,” he sighs. Impatient. Exasperated. _Waiting_.

“What?” She blinks at him innocently. “Did you want something?”

He reaches for her arm and she yanks it back so fast it bangs painfully against the wall. “No,” she says harshly. “If you want something, you’re going to have to _ask_ for it.”

His lips twist into a scowl, and she’s fascinated. She’s never, ever seen him truly angry. Or truly any real emotion, for that matter. But now she’s gone and flipped his little games on their head and he’s not the one pulling the strings anymore and he’s furious. What a blow to that massive ego it must be.

She decides she’s going to drag this out a little further. Give him the rope, see what he does with it.

Another lightbulb flicks on in her head: this is exactly what he did to her.

She pushes herself off the counter, shoves him away far enough so she can stand (on shaky legs, admittedly, still two touches from coming) and heads wordlessly down the hall. She knows exactly what he wants. He wants her to fight and lose, to beg for what he was going to give her all along. Maybe push her on to the bed, against a wall, although those are a little cliche, and he likes to keep her guessing. Or he could ignore her, sit back and wait for her to come to him. It’s probably a little late for that one, but he knows how it drives her insane.

Angelica decides to take the bullets out of his gun, yanks her clothes off and sits back on the bed before he can make his own move, crooking a finger. He glowers at her but comes anyway, doesn't try to fight when she shoves him onto his back.

She straddles his stomach, knees digging into his ribs on purpose, shoves him back down with a hand on his forehead when he tries to sit up. “I told you this had nothing to do with you, and I meant it,” she tells him, and rubs at her clit with one hand. She moans showily, uses her other hand to grab her breast roughly, thumbs at a nipple. His hand inches towards her; she smacks it away. “No,” she hisses, rocking her hips in time with her fingers. “You think I need you to get off?”

“Doesn’t matter,” he says, low and vicious. “You want it.” Every muscle in his body is straining, desperate, pissed, and she loves it. It’s such a head rush she almost doesn’t want to make him snap.

“You should be careful, Thomas,” she says breathily, planting a hand in the center of his chest, bracing herself while she grinds against her hand. He glares at her, knocks her hand off of him and sends her falling forward, only catching herself at the last second with her face inches from his. “Someone might think that you care.”

She weaves one hand into his hair, yanks his head back and sinks her teeth into his neck, giving him a mark to match her own. “God damn it,” he groans, long and low, hips jerking underneath her. She sucks a little harder, really sealing it in while she drags the nails of her other hand over his chest and he makes a growling sound deep in his throat.

The dark, wrecked look on his face is the wrongest kind of right, and the second she touches herself again she’s losing it, squirming mindlessly against her own hand, chasing her own high like her life depends on it. God, she’s so close it hurts, after he worked her over so thoroughly earlier and with him still shuddering underneath her she’s right fucking there, desperate to come, can feel the first cracks in her composure-

And then she’s on her back, wrists pinned under his hands and legs shoved apart by his knees, unable to get any kind of friction, anything to soothe the white hot protest of every cell in her body.

“What the fuck?” she spits, doing her best to shove him off through her still hazy vision. “Get off.”

He tilts his head, mock confused. “I thought you didn’t need me to get off.”

“Fuck you, Thomas,” and then his hand is skimming between her legs, not nearly enough, and she’s gasping “fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you.”

“If you insist.” He grins, filthy and dangerous, shoves his cock so deep inside her she sees stars. He starts thrusting, long and slow, in and out, and she realizes she’s still chanting “fuck you” under her breath like a lifeline. “The language is really ever so charming,” he drawls, dragging one finger over her mouth that she immediately bats away. “A very aggressive way to beg.”

“I’m not begging,” she grits out. “I don’t want anything from you.”

“Yes, you do,” he says, pulling her hips up so he can push even deeper. “Whenever you want to come, just say the word.”

“I hate you,” she tries to snap. It comes out as more of a high pitched whine when he drives relentlessly into her, so full and so much she can’t stop herself from shaking. But she’ll be damned if she lets him make her come. Not like this. 

“Not even you believe that,” Thomas growls roughly, thrusting harder, a little less controlled and she knows he’s close. She just needs to keep it together for a few more minutes. He shifts her again, hits that spot inside of her with every thrust. Her limbs turn to jello and it’s all she can do to hang on, shaking her head wildly against the bed and digging her nails into her palms. He pulls out for a minute, drags the head of his cock through her folds and a moan rips itself from her chest and tears leak from her eyes as she fights with everything she has to keep from coming. It’s too much, it’s all just too fucking much to deal with. She doesn’t want to know the things she knows, doesn’t want to make the choices she has to, and until this is over, she doesn’t have to, so she holds on.

“Jesus, fuck,” he groans, his fingers gripping her thigh just this side of too tight as he shoves back in, thrusting once, twice before he goes rigid and comes. He rolls off of her, and it's a relief, the force shoving her towards the edge gone, but it gives her no actual pleasure. She's wound up so tight she can't even move, can barely breathe. But she doesn’t care. It hurts like a hard won victory, like sore muscles on the top of a mountain.

Never one to let anything lie, only a few century long seconds pass before his hand is back, dancing along her raw, overstimulated skin and making her whole body thrum with anticipation. She can't hold out much longer but she has to, she can't do it, she can't, and it takes her a minute to realize that she's speaking out loud.

It must register for him at the same time, because he looks at her, for real, and finally sees, immediately trying to yank his hand away.

“No,” she insists, grabbing his wrist and keeping him there. “Keep going.” Whether it’s him finally, finally saying no to her or giving up the little games entirely, whatever it looks like she wants to and intends to win.

“Enough, Angelica,” he says harshly.

“No, fuck you, I need more, I’m not done, I’m not giving in, I want more,” she chokes, trying to fuck down onto his hand, and shudders into a groan when he presses his fingers inside and flicks his thumb over her clit. Another few strokes and she’s crying, presses a hand over her face so he can’t see the unbidden tears streaming down her face, paralyzed until finally she comes with a wordless cry as her vision blacks out.

\---------

She rolls onto her side as she comes back to herself, sobbing in earnest, overstimulated and exhausted and confused.

He grabs her shoulder and tries to pull her up but she jerks away, curls further into herself, unable to stop crying.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” It’s muffled into a pillow but she knows he hears her. “Are you that dedicated to your little mind games?”

She’s never made him deal with the consequences of his actions, always done her best to conceal how angry she was when he wouldn’t take her seriously, how close some of his little comments hit to home. She’s been pretending, for months, that nothing he says upsets her and never once made him apologize.

Neither of them know what to do now.

Slowly, she catches her breath, grounds herself back in the present. If it was even a month ago she'd be mortified, but Angelica really doesn't give a shit what he thinks anymore. He knew what he was doing, he knew all along and she won't hide the effect it has anymore. They both know better.

She makes herself sit up, slowly, all her muscles aching. She looks at him, all his wild eyes and twitching fingers, can see his mind working, eyes bouncing from the bathroom to the door to his clothes.

“Don’t you dare leave right now,” she hisses. "Don't you fucking dare."

“Why?” He looks genuinely confused, legitimately upset, and it makes her feel guilty, like she was the one that drove them this far. Maybe she was. “Why would you do that?”

“Why didn’t you say no?”

“You-" he runs his hands through his hair, shaking with agitation. "I thought that’s what you wanted. I thought you knew what you were doing.”

“I didn’t know you would do it! I didn’t know what I was asking for." She drags her hands over her face, wiping away sweat and tears and what's left of her pride. “I didn’t know. I didn’t know it would be like this.”

“Angelica,” he sighs, reaches out a hand, pulls away at the last second. He doesn’t bother to pretend like he doesn’t know what she’s talking about. “Now you do.”

She shakes her head. “If this is winning, I don’t want it.”

“That’s your choice.”

It takes everything in her not to start crying again. She doesn’t want to be the one to have to make the smart choice. Why is that on her? Why does she have to pull them back from the edge? Why are they even there to begin with?

“Why do I have to choose? Why can’t I just be a normal, happy person that doesn’t want any of this in the first place?”

“You can try.” He sighs heavily. “But people like you don’t get easy choices.”

“I don’t know what that means,” she whispers into her knees.

“You do." He reaches out, doesn't flinch away this time, and shoves a sweaty lock of hair out of her eyes and behind her ear.

"I know," she confesses. "I do. I just don't want to."

Thomas half smiles, a little sadly. "I lied, before. I was trying to be a dick,” he says quietly, staring off into space. “You shouldn’t date someone that’s in awe of you. It won’t be enough.” He looks at her, finally. “I’m sorry I had to be the one to show you that.”

“Why do you think I’m still here?” she says, and neither one of them needs to answer that.


	6. summer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Do you ever want to be not yourself? Not someone smart enough to do what’s right and just do something stupid because you want to? I’m done with finals after Thursday and then I have a month before my internship starts, no classes, and nothing to do. How much time do I really have left to be young and dumb, you know?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter.... was not part of the original plan? but the idea would not get out of my head. hope you all like!
> 
> trivia: this lives in a google doc entitled "ate my heart," which is a line from a truly amazing lady gaga song "monster." 
> 
> I'M ON TUMBLR NOW. COME TALK TO ME. [iaintinapatientphase.tumblr.com](http://iaintinapatientphase.tumblr.com/).

Angelica watches Eliza fall for Alex, and vice versa, as summer returns and the world opens wide. They’re so simply, stupid happy it makes her stomach hurt. Eliza looks at him like he hung the moon, and he talks about her like she gave him the stars.

She still sees Thomas. She isn’t sure how to stop. She still isn't sure that she wants to.

The two of them are bickering good naturedly, something about Eliza not being interested in going with him to the library, even though it’s Saturday and you don’t have anywhere to be tomorrow, Eliza, and you can watch Netflix there, there’s Internet, c’mon, Liza, you’re the one complaining how we didn’t get to spend any time together this week, and on and on and on.

“Alexander,” Eliza says, sprawled out on the couch, head in his lap, not at all self conscious. “I’m not coming with you.”

“Fine,” he huffs, looking dramatically pouty but not at all resentful. “I just wanna hang out with you.”

“I know, idiot, so do I, but not at the library on Saturday night. We can go to breakfast tomorrow.”

“You sure? I know you like sleeping in on Sundays.”

“Yeah, I want to,” Eliza says, so casually and easily it takes the air right out of Angelica’s lungs. “I want pancakes as big as my head. No, as big as yours.”

“Rude!” Alex cries, mock offended, but laughs along with her. “I’ll get you your stupid pancakes anyway.”

“Awww, babe,” Eliza coos dramatically, rolling her eyes. “You are too good to me.”

“You want it, I got it,” Alex says with a grin. “Now get off, I have to go to the library.”

Eliza rolls off of him, off the couch, onto the floor, landing with a thud that makes them both giggle like children. She tilts her face up so Alex can give her a lingering kiss as he steps over her and gathers his scattered books.

Angelica watches them, considers it in her mind, observes all the pieces and tries to come up with an answer. She doesn’t want _that_ , exactly, not sure that she wants to immediately be swept up into whatever the two of them are now, but she wants something _like_ that. She thought they were too scared to ask what they wanted from each other, but it looks like that was Angelica all along.

It just seems so easy. Too good to be true. She didn’t think that was possible for someone like her, but Alex reminds her painfully of herself, and he seems delirious with joy all the time.

Not everyone is Eliza, though. Most people don't even come close.

“I'll text you later?” Eliza asks as he shoves his stuff into his battered backpack.

“Please do. Let's plan on 10:30 tomorrow.”

“Sounds good. Have fun. Don't stay there too late,” Eliza says absently, going back to her book.

Alex scoffs, sends a little smile to Angelica. “I'm studying for Greene’s final. No fun involved.”

“Damn, that one almost killed me last semester. Godspeed.”

“Very helpful,” he deadpans.

“I thought so.”

He grimaces and waves as he heads out. “See y'all later.”

Angelica tries to go back to her review, but there's a question nagging in the back of her head that has nothing to do with case law.

“Alex is nice to you, right?”

Eliza snorts. “You shovel talked him months ago, Gel. Don't worry, he knows to be scared of you.”

“I know that. I'm just making sure.”

She sits up, looks curiously at Angelica. “Yes, he's nice to me. Of course he is. Why do you ask?”

“Big sis stuff. You know I worry.”

“I do,” Eliza says slowly. “But you were the one who introduced us. Practically knocked our heads together like dolls. Why would you do that if you didn't think Alexander was a good guy?”

“He is, it's not that. I was just asking.”

“Angelica…”

She looks away from Eliza's wide, sympathetic eyes. “I've just known him for a while, and he's… intense. Ambitious. He'll do what it takes to survive. I want to make sure he's good for you, is all.”

“You don't need to worry. He's a lot like you.”

“Don't _say_ that,” Angelica bursts out before she can stop herself.

“Alright, you're going to tell me what's going on right now,” Eliza orders, sitting up fully.

“Nothing,” Angelica lies, “I was just asking a question.”

“Does this have to do with whoever you've been seeing that you won't tell me or Peggy about?” Angelica opens her mouth to reply but Eliza's always been terrifying when she's actually mad and cuts her off. “Don't you dare lie. You're never around at night, you've been touchy about people using your phone, and a few weeks ago you had a giant hickey that I know that guy who took you to a boring play didn't give you.”

“I didn't lie,” Angelica protests.

“No, you just hid it from us,” Eliza says in a tone that makes it clear what she thinks of that distinction. “Why? Who is it that's so bad you don't want to tell us?”

“I'm fine, Eliza, you don't need to worry.”

“Bullshit. Are they married? Is it one of the lawyers at your firm? I'm assuming it's a man, based on your history, but you wouldn't need to hide it from us if it was a woman. Is it someone who's mixed up in bad things? Are they pressuring you to do drugs or anything illegal?”

“It's nothing like that.”

“He's enough like Alexander for you to see a comparison,” Eliza says thoughtfully. “One of your professors?”

“No.”

“It doesn't even matter. I don't care who it is. He's clearly not nice to you, if you're projecting that on me,” Eliza says sharply. “And if you feel the need to hide it from me and Peggy you know we wouldn’t like it.”

“It's fine,” she insists. “I'm fine.”

“You're not.”

“I'm fine,” she repeats. “I know what I'm doing.”

“Do you need help?” Eliza asks, softening. “I don't need to tell you you can come to me with anything, but I can't help you if I don't know what you need.”

Angelica twitches, irritation flaring. “I don't need anything from anyone.”

“Yeah, okay. You can either stop seeing whoever it is of your own accord, or I'm going to do my best to figure out who it is and make sure it ends.”

“I'm not a child, Eliza, I can make my own decisions.”

“Can you? Because the Angelica I've looked up to my entire life would _never_ let anyone make her feel like you look right now. He's made you ashamed of yourself somehow and it's not right. You would never let anyone treat you like that.”

“It's not like that at all. You don't know what you're talking about. You couldn't.”

Eliza bristles. That was the exact wrong thing to say to her, but Angelica's pissed and if it'll get Eliza to just leave her alone, so be it. “What the fuck does that mean?”

“You don't get it, you don't get what it's like inside my head sometimes,” Angelica says, frustrated. “I don't want someone that is just nice.”

“Angelica, someone can treat you well without being a pushover,” Eliza says acidly. “I know you think I am, but that's not what Alexander and I are like at all. Nice doesn’t mean weak.”

“That’s not what I’m saying.”

“Yes, it is. You think that being smart or… what did you call him? Right, ‘intense,’ makes you better than other people. Like all that anyone that didn’t go to an Ivy League school wants is for someone to call them pretty and take them to Applebee’s and have quiet sex once a month. You’re somehow different because you want someone who makes you better. Someone you don’t feel like you’re settling with.”

Yes. Exactly. “I don’t get why wanting that is a bad thing,” Angelica says.

“Because that’s all anyone wants!" Eliza half yells. "Literally everyone! It’s not just you! You just have different ideas of what ‘better’ looks like. And so does everyone. To someone it’s a promotion at work, to someone else it’s learning how to be more forgiving. Maybe picking up a goddamn hobby, I don’t know. The point is that you aren’t special for wanting someone like that. And that someone can be smart and hard working and ambitious and even a little bit of an asshole and they can still be nice to you. Don’t let him or anyone else make you feel like those things are exclusive.”

“Whatever, Eliza, not all of us live inside your perfect Disney Princess world where everyone’s _nice_ and Bambi’s mom doesn’t fucking die,” she says harshly, suddenly and irrationally furious. “The real world is shitty sometimes. Just because you aren’t strong enough to deal with it doesn’t mean the rest of us are.”

“You're not going to get me to drop this by being a bitch,” Eliza spits. “End it with him.”

“You don’t know anything. Don’t talk about things you can’t understand.”

“End it,” she repeats coldly: judge, jury, and executioner.

Angelica doesn’t even bother to collect her things before she leaves, slamming the door behind her. She won’t need them where she’s going.

AS: ?

She gets in a cab before she gets a response. He’s probably home and it’s not like she’s never shown up unannounced before, even if she said she wouldn’t see him until finals were over, and-

TJ: Come over

Well that settles that, then.

She rests her head on the dirty window, stares dramatically at the lights like some dumb character in an indie movie. She knows it has to end. Angelica’s not stupid, she’s known it was never a forever thing and her conversation with Eliza is more of a reminder of the ticking clock than anything.

If she’s being honest, she’s outgrowing him. She doesn’t know what he thought he was getting into. He clearly gets some kind of dark kick out manipulating her, nudging her in different directions like the designer of some sick maze. But he wanted someone smart enough to be worth toying with. Someone sharp enough to fight with, someone arrogant enough to think they could win.

Someone like her.

Angelica doesn’t understand how he thought that would be sustainable. It only took her a few weeks to figure it out, another few to start fighting back, and a few more before she started to win (sometimes). He’s losing his grip on her and it’s not coming back. The mystery of it has lessened now that she has a better grasp on what his motivations are, and their little battles end in stalemates more often than not these days. There’s not a lot of challenge left. She knows she’ll walk away easily when the time comes, and wonders if that makes her just as bad as him.

She just wants one nice thing before it’s over: a moment suspended in amber to put on the back shelf of her mind with all the other people she used to be. Something to hold on to, to prove that it wasn’t all so horrible. That it wasn’t only him playing her and upsetting her and making her feel crazy. There was a reason she kept going back, and she wants to know exactly what that is before she leaves it behind.

Now, at least, she knows how to get what she wants from him.

She finds him in his bedroom, lying on his bed with his feet by the pillows and his head hanging off the foot, listening to some pretentious jazz shit on his pretentious restored gramophone.

He’s in a good mood, doesn’t even complain when she turns the volume down to something reasonable, which makes it easy to smile at him, push her way into his personal space and tuck herself into his side.

“Hi,” he says to the ceiling above them. “I thought you had plans. Then studying for finals all week.”

“I did. And I do. I got in trouble for calling my sister’s boyfriend an asshole,” she lies.

She can see his lips turn up in the corner of her eye. He’s easily charmed by her, even if he usually pretends not to be. Likes when she’s a little bratty, likes when she talks shit about people he doesn’t like either. “Is he?”

She considers. Thomas would probably hate Alex, and vice versa. They’re the definition of the “uncanny valley,” incredibly similar but just different enough to make the other’s stomach churn.

“Yes,” she answers, and they both laugh. Perfect. “Thomas?”

“Angelica?”

“Can we do something stupid?” she asks, walking her fingers up from his hip to his ribcage and back down.

He’s quiet for a moment, but doesn’t say no. “Like what?”

“I don’t know,” she says, pulling away from him just enough to raise her arms above her head and stretch, curving her back a little more than is strictly necessary. “Do you ever want to be not yourself? Not someone smart enough to do what’s right and just do something stupid because you want to? I’m done with finals after Thursday and then I have a month before my internship starts, no classes, and nothing to do. How much time do I really have left to be young and dumb, you know?”

There’s something typically male and a little fucked up in the way he caves so easily when she plays up the age thing, or relative inexperience. “Well,” he says slowly, “I have to go to Paris next weekend. Consulting gig. Only one day of work.”

She thinks she knows what he’s implying and is instantly thrilled, but really plays up the disappointment on the “okay,” to make sure. Let him squirm at the idea of her here alone without him to indulge or soothe or whatever alpha male fantasy he’s working with. Makes sure no part of their bodies are touching, making him have to be the one to reach out.

“Do you want to come with?”

She doesn’t respond immediately, counts out a few seconds to make her surprise more realistic. “Really?”

“Really.”

“Then yeah,” she replies. “I’d like that.”

He rolls over, bracing one arm at her side and leaning over her. “I’m taking their plane, leaving Friday morning. Saturday’s open. I have meetings all day Sunday, you can do whatever. Then we leave Sunday night.”

She can’t stop herself from smiling, hopes he doesn’t see the wild edge brought on by the the knowledge that this isn’t something she should be doing at all, that she’ll have to lie to her family, that this is a trip she should take with someone she actually loves. She doesn’t care. Soon she’ll be a real grown up and she’ll have to end it. There’ll be time for hard decisions later, but the time for bad ones is now.

“Okay,” she says.

“Okay,” he echoes, with an unreadable half smile. “Then we’ll go.”

\---------

Angelica takes her finals (fucking obliterates them would be a better term, but she’s trying her hand at modesty) somehow without obsessing over her imminent trip to the City of Love with her thirty eight year old not really friend with really great benefits.

She packs a single bag, then changes her mind and packs two. Thomas will probably have at least twice that many, and it’s not like they’ll have baggage fees. Who the fuck takes private jets, anyway? Who flies girls thirteen years younger with them on their private jet to Paris? Who the fuck has she become?

She also carefully implies to Peggy and Eliza that she’s exhausted from her exams and will be sleeping all weekend. Not an explicit lie, but absolutely not the truth. She’s kind of sad she can’t bring them back anything, but then she would have to tell them everything and that would be too much to deal with.

She meets him at the airfield. She supposes she could have gone to his apartment and they could have gone together, but that felt weird and too clingy and couple like.

He’s sitting on the steps to the plane, waiting for her, and he’s _wearing_ _sunglasses_.

He doesn’t do that in her apartment, or his, or at the little diner where they sometimes eat breakfast, barely wears clothes at all now that it’s warm let alone _accessories_ , and it sends her heart rate skyrocketing. She feels twenty two again, meeting the famous Thomas Jefferson and having no fucking idea how to handle it. She’s gotten so used to seeing him on safe ground, to the fight-fuck-repeat rhythm of their relationship that deviating from the norm this much is making her uneasy.

“You ready?” she says, forcing a lightness to her voice that she doesn’t feel.

“Just waiting on you,” he says, and very politely and very uncharacteristically takes her bag from her. He immediately hands it to the waiting attendant, because of course he does. She follows him up the stairs anyway.

He flops down in one of the seats with his typical, over obnoxious, performative boredom; the posture that means that he Does Not Care and that he Is Not Impressed, the attitude that’s a cover for unease. She’s not sure how she ever thought he was hard to read.

She sits in the one across from him, puts her feet up daintily on the low table in between them. “I got you a present,” she says. “A ‘thank you’ of sorts.”

“Don’t thank me, I’m not paying for any of this,” he says absently, paging through a cooking magazine he unearthed from god knows where. “You can thank the good folks at _Le Groupe Stratégie_.”

“Well, anyway.” She throws a shitty, cheap Eiffel Tower keychain at him, holding back a laugh when it hits him on the forehead and falls into his lap.

He picks it up, dangles it on one long finger. “Significantly more cliche than I’d expect from you.”

“God, Thomas, it’s a joke. Don’t be such an asshole.”

He gives her a little condescending smirk before turning back to his stupid ass recipes. The plane picks that auspicious moment to take off and remind her that she’s stuck with him for the weekend. He won't apologize, and she won't let it go, and this was a horrible, stupid idea. She stares out the window, digging her nails (freshly painted. She went to the nail salon yesterday, because she’s an idiot and a child) into her palms.

“LGS would hate that shit, you know,” he says casually. “They’re big on sustainable development. None of that mass produced whatever the fuck that goes straight into landfills. They build communities in developing countries, with factories that pay living wages and teach the residents everything they need to know. Provide school, vocational training, all of it.”

It's an olive branch, a fairly obvious one. She idly considers snapping it.

“It’s really interesting work,” he continues when she doesn’t respond. “Building the ideal society based on statistics and social theory.”

“How many homes could what they’re paying you for the weekend build?”

She looks him dead in the eye, watches his jaw work and the gears spin in his head. “If you want to look at things in such a simplistic, juvenile way, then I suppose quite a few.”

“I see,” she says. “And what do your theories say about the really gross colonial implications of playing God with your exploited factory workers?”

“It’s not playing God.” He scowls at her, tosses the magazine aside for one of the flight attendants to pick up later. “It’s building a society with intention. The point is to overcome the problematic power imbalances and historical circumstances that cripple developing countries. Eliminate things like oligarchy and avoid religious extremism.”

“It doesn’t work like that,” she says, suddenly furious. “You don’t get to just drop into any random spot on the globe and decide that the people there will abandon thousands of years of culture and tradition and submit to your creepy experiments.”

“So if I or someone else knows things that might improve other people’s lives we should keep it to ourselves? Sorry, kids in developing countries, the polio vaccine isn’t part of your historical culture so you can fuck off.”

“There are ways to help people without playing puppet master. And don't act like that's your motivation. You don't do shit for anyone, ever, but suddenly some weird start up calls with a huge fee and suddenly you're available to start saving people.”

That hits a nerve, one of his most sensitive, the cracks in his composure hissing across his face like ice on a pond. He loves to think of himself as uninterested in money, a modern day philosopher of the purest kind, and cannot stand to have his hypocrisy pointed out to him.

“I really don't find you playing dumb cute,” he snaps. “LGS isn't a charity, they don't operate like one. I'm sorry to crush your little Habitat for Humanity rich girl dreams, but some of us are focused on actual transformative change.”

“Okay, Thomas,” she laughs, rolling her eyes and leaning back in her seat. His favorite thing to throw in her face is her age, her supposed naïveté, the way she couldn't possibly understand the things that grown ups talk about. Angelica's long gotten over it. She's not stupid and she can't help being young, so he can make his snide little comments all she wants: they have nothing to do with her. “I just think it's funny that you're always yelling-” he never yells, that's beneath him and his self obsessed dignity “- about the need for the rejection of capitalism and all that comes along with it. You'll run halfway around the world to fix people that didn't fucking ask for your help but you can't be bothered to do any of the simple things that could make an actual difference. Endorsing in the presidential primaries could actually change a few minds, use the fact that people actually listen to you for good. You could even pay the people who maintain your dumbass estate a few more dollars an hour and change lives that easily.”

“It's incredible how small minded you are,” he says, practically biting the words to pieces in his defensive anger. “All of those things are bandages. We live in a fundamentally fucked up society; I won't participate in a broken system.”

“Jesus Christ, you can jerk off to your Walden Pond fantasies all day long but you can't actually opt out of the real world. You can't wreak havoc on other people's lives just to boost your own ego. News fucking flash, Thomas, you're already participating. You're no better or different than anyone else.”

“Would you shut the fuck up?” he snaps, voice crashing off the walls of the tiny cabin.

She shuts the fuck up, stunned. Did he just yell at her?

He gets up and slams into the bathroom, the only place he can hide from her on this tiny little plane.

Oh my god, he did yell at her. Angelica laughs breathlessly. Over the past few months she's mapped out his boundaries, located all his sharp edges, but she's never pushed like _that_. She can't remember the last time an argument ended like that, with him too pissed to snap back or shove her onto the nearest flat surface and fuck her taunts right out of her mouth. He's done it to her, oh, dozens of times, especially in the beginning, but she's never done that to him. Never beaten him that badly.

He comes back eventually and they don't talk about it. Somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean she shows him a passage in her book, and he tells her what he thinks, and they pretend like nothing ever happened at all.

\---------

Angelica, wrapped in one of the hotel bathrobes, skin still damp from the shower, stares at Thomas sleeping in the still too early morning light.

If they were in New York, in her bed or his, she would have no problem kicking him awake, demanding that they order breakfast, or otherwise being a pest until he agreed to do what she wanted. But this is different. They’ve never actually hung out with _intent_. With activities on the schedule beyond showing up at the other’s apartment for some sex and a fight.

This trip was reckless, she knew that all along. She didn’t think past the initial leap off the cliff, never considered what the water at the bottom would be like.

Well, if she's going to be uncomfortable, he is too. “Thomas,” she says loudly. “Up.”

“Stop yelling.”

“If you don't get up I'm gonna go buy a pink beret and wear it around town all day.”

“Drama, drama, drama,” he says, but rolls out of bed anyway. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“I would,” she says solemnly. “I’ll get you a matching one if you’re not nice to me.”

He pauses. She meant it as a joke, it wasn’t supposed to mean anything, but it feels like it did, hanging there in the air between them.

“Whatever you want,” he says lightly, turning to look in the mirror and tug critically at his hair. “I’m gonna shower. Order coffee. Dress in layers, it’s gonna heat up mid day,” he says, slipping past her and closing the door.

She can breathe again, and it occurs to her that _that_ was him being _nice_.

He does it again, when they’re both ready, prepared to leave the room, staring at each other and waiting for the other to make the first move. They don’t do this. They watch each other leave, they don’t go places together.

“So?” he says, kicking one ratty sneaker against the flawless carpet. “What do you want to do?”

She chews on her lip. “I… don’t know? I’ve never been here, you’re the expert.”

“You’re the tourist,” he counters.

“I don’t want to be,” she says, shaking her head. “Don’t give me Paris for Dummies. I want more than that. Show me things that are real.”

“Okay,” he says. “Then I will.”

They go to an almost tragically cool neighborhood, very Brooklyn like but it’s all new to her and not insufferable. It’s not the Louvre, but the little independent galleries are amazing all the same; they don’t go to the Notre Dame, but the old architecture repurposed to be something new is it’s own kind of wonder. She soaks in the language, the wine he opens with a pen he finds in his pocket, the easy summer lightness of the day. It’s wonderful, it really is.

She can’t wait to go home.

They’re both trying very, very hard to be nice to each other, and it makes her skin crawl. The silences where she’d have a sarcastic remark or the absence of his disdainful stare is too painful to bear. They know what’s supposed to be there, know why it’s missing. The empty spaces could be anything, and they’re both uncomfortable not knowing what exactly it was supposed to be. A joke at someone’s expense can be laughed off; a sharp reply can be parried; a silence has to be borne, all the implications, all the might have beens, the possibilities of all the horrible things that could have been said impossible to fight off. She can’t focus on how he half-smiles at her because she’s too busy thinking about what he’s thinking and not saying.

They go back to the hotel after dinner, half drunk and tense, and it’s like the dam breaks, Thomas shoving her so hard against the wall she sees stars and she bites his lip so hard she tastes blood.

They never figured out how to do anything that wasn’t a competition, and that’s the problem. Angelica's not desperate to fight with him anymore. She doesn’t need to prove that she can beat him. She knows she can, and she knows that winning doesn’t mean she’s any smarter or more capable or any better, really, than she is if he wins. It’s not that she doesn’t still enjoy debating things with him, or that it isn’t fun to outwit someone as smart as he is, but she doesn’t need it anymore.

Doesn’t need him.

So she gets up at six and gives herself the most self indulgent, touristy day ever. She doesn’t regret his absence even a little: Angelica’s never minded being alone. But she wishes she wasn’t this isolated. She finds what must be one of Lafayette’s distant relatives in the old cemetery and is _this close_ to sending him a picture before she remembers that no one’s supposed to know where she is. She stands in awe at the top of the Eiffel Tower, which is no less exciting for being incredibly cliche, and wishes she was with her sisters, tugging on Peggy’s ponytail and looking where Eliza points, trusting her knack for always finding the prettiest detail.

Try as she might, she can't stop imagining what Thomas would say. He’d have come with her, if she asked, but it would have been a different kind of solitude. He's been here a thousand times, already seen all the things she's dying to. He wouldn't make fun of her outright, but he’d be condescending. Patronizing. She would be just as alone in her wonder as she is without him beside her.

She never wanted him to be her boyfriend, never wanted him to hold her hand and love her and look at her the way Alex looks at Eliza. That’s not what she was looking for when she made the first bad decision that put her on the road to her latest, didn’t know that when she tapped a man she didn’t know on the shoulder she would end up alone, in a foreign country, the strap of her bra rubbing painfully against the nail marks he left on her back last night. She wasn’t looking for a fairy tale. Not the kind with a happy ending, anyway.

She leaves enough time to walk slowly back to the hotel, watching the changing colors of the sunset play over the buildings, imagines lives and hearts and souls in the people walking past her. It already feels like a dream, something that she thought of once but can’t quite place. Something that ended before it began.

She waits for him in the lobby, lets the bartender with the wide smile and freckles give her a drink on the house. He’s pretty and his hands look soft and in another life he could have been her bad decision. She could have fallen in deep, crazy, stupid love with someone she didn’t have enough in common with and lived half a world away and set her skin on fire when he touched her. It could have been an intense, hot pain, instead of the dull ache Thomas left her with.

Will leave her with, she corrects, as he appears next to her and she follows him to the waiting car.

\---------

They sit across from each other on the plane again and this time she doesn’t mind when he ignores her. She doesn’t particularly want to talk to him, either.

Angelica’s always known where she was going. She’s a planner, the definition of a Type A overachiever, sat down at her desk one day when she was fourteen and planned out the next twelve years of her life. High school, college, law school, clerking at the Supreme Court. She hadn’t decided at the time whether she wanted to go the academic route or maybe get into politics someday, and she still hasn’t. But nowhere in there was there room for bad decisions. For fucking someone she shouldn't have and lying to the only two people in the world that really, truly matter to her. Starting things with Thomas wasn’t in her plans, but that doesn’t mean ending it can’t be.

She considers. She has a lot of free time before she goes to Washington for her internship, time that she doesn’t need to spend doing anything productive and that she wouldn’t mind wasting with him. She could do it before she leaves, but then it’s like she’s running away. Angelica wants to make it clear that she’s ending it because she wants to, that she can stay away because she wants to, and she can’t make that point from hundreds of miles away. The fall, then. When she gets back. It’s perfect, really, she can start her final year of school on a clean slate and leave him entirely behind when she throws herself back into her classes in the fall. She slots it into her mental calendar. Maybe a week before the semester begins. _To do: Tell Thomas it’s over._

But it’s not the fall now, she thinks, looking over at him while he stares out the window, something loud she can kind of hear coming out of his headphones. She kicks a foot up, rests it high on his thigh. Mimics his look of fake surprise.

He trails one hand up her stockinged calf, pausing to drag his nail along the beginnings of a run on her shin, gives it a little tug and rips it open the slightest bit.

“Asshole.” She straightens her leg and kicks him in the chest. She knows he can't hear her through whatever's playing in his ears, but he can read the disdain on her lips and he smiles a little as he slides his hand higher.

He stops abruptly when he gets to the lace edge, one finger slipping between the top of the stocking, the garter, and the smooth skin of her thigh. She gives him an innocent, insolent little smirk, stays perfectly still while he maps out the situation with the tips of his fingers. She didn't have this in mind, exactly, when she got dressed this morning- it was really more of a self indulgent, I'm exploring Paris and I'll dress up if I want to thing, but his reaction is certainly gratifying. She's never tried anything like this before. Fancy lingerie would mean that she cared, and if he reacted it would mean that he cared, and that would be against the rules.

When he slots a finger under the strap, pulls up slightly, she knows precisely what's coming and the stinging snap of it against her thigh is even better for it. The noise she could muffle in the back of her throat is too, but it's not like he could hear anyway. He does it again; she bites her lip and squirms into it a little.

He's giving her his full attention now, eyes bright with interest and fingers heavy on her leg. He leans forward just enough to hook a finger in the waistband of her skirt and tug, pulls her up and out of her seat and into his lap.

“Presumptuous,” she tells him, watching the intriguing little wrinkle in his brow when he can't quite read her lips. “Audacious,” she says, and he deflects, biting at her collarbone. He moves to pull off his headphones with one hand while the other slips under her shirt to palm a breast. “No,” she says, slowly, clearly, places a firm hand over his. He wanted to ignore her, that's what he'll get.

His hand on her chest squeezes, thumbs teasingly at her nipple. “Still no,” she says, and slides her hand into his pocket with a little more groping around than strictly necessary to pull out his phone. She meets his eyes as she turns up the volume almost to the max, says his name slowly, carefully, letting her tongue trip over every letter; feels hot all over when he swallows and his fingers tighten on her hips.

God, she'll miss this. The rush of power that comes with captivating a mind like his, with bending him a little to her will. Turning his own tricks against him. It's a thrill like nothing else and it scares her how much she likes it. She clings to that imaginary deadline when she feels herself falling too far into it, reminds herself that she's going to stop. That she _can_ stop.

She grinds her hips against his, leans in and lets him feel the laughter in her chest while he fumbles with his belt. Yeah, she'll miss this. But it's not fall, and it's not time for that yet.

Angelica’s always been good at sticking to a plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you, as always, for reading!
> 
> TUMBLR. COME PLAY! [iaintinapatientphase.tumblr.com](http://iaintinapatientphase.tumblr.com/).


	7. fall ii

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When she looks back on it later, she knows she should have left it at that. Should have said “I don’t give a shit what you do, either,” and made him leave, left him and whatever they were and everything at that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> look at what literal angel, jasmineschuyler, made!!!!!!! [MY DECLARATION AESTHETIC ART.](http://jasmineschuyler.tumblr.com/post/140361218157/schuylerson-aesthetic-insp) I'VE BEEN BLUSHING WITH DELIRIOUS JOY SINCE I SAW.
> 
> also, come find me on [tumblr](http://iaintinapatientphase.tumblr.com/)! this is wrapping up and i have a lot of angelica/tjeff feelings to share, and a trashy bitter exes story for them in the works.

AS: you around?

TJ: you're back?

AS: yeah

AS: come over around 8?

TJ: k

She's actually been back for over a week. DC was fun, her internship rewarding, her roommate nice, blah blah boring fulfillment of expectations blah.

She shouldn't be childish, it was really a great experience. Helping overturn wrongful convictions is a little more in the weeds than she wants to go with her degree, but it was a great overview of precedent and appeals and a good primer on where civil rights law might be going. She knocked it out of the goddamn park and has killer references for when she starts her Supreme Court applications in a few months.

But Angelica’s back in New York and she's _bored_ , has two weeks before classes start, and she's not really supposed to use her favorite cure for boredom anymore.

Not that that stopped her from letting him sleep over in her sublet one night in July, but still. He was in town, had spent a week at his house in Virginia and had a few meetings in DC, and she didn't have any plans that night and the guy down the hall she had been hooking up with wasn't around and she just didn't feel like coming up with any other excuses. He’s great in bed. She wanted to. Sue her.

She did not, however, take Thomas up on his invitation to Monticello when he was back in August. She has a strict policy against visiting houses with names when she can avoid it, just like she never goes on anything someone might to refer to as a “yacht.” She can't help coming from money, but she can help being a douche about it.

Anyway. She only saw him once, on her territory, and only called him late at night to get off like three, maybe six times. She thought it a nice compromise.

But it's time, probably. This was the plan. And now’s a good a time as ever, she supposes. No classes or homework to distract her, no plans tomorrow in case they want to fuck one last time. Angelica considers changing out of her leggings and tank top into something more “appropriate” for whatever it is she's doing - not really a break up, but she doesn’t have a better word for it - but she decides that's stupid and she doesn't care, anyway.

She doesn't care, she repeats to herself, pacing around her apartment from seven thirty on. She doesn't. She's not nervous, and she's definitely not scared of him. She jumps a mile when the buzzer sounds, but that's just because she's had a lot of caffeine that day, and that's definitely what's making her hands shake when she opens the door.

“Hi,” he says, rather underwhelmingly.

“Hi.” She flits her eyes over him, a little over energized. He has a piece of lint in his hair, and his hands are bigger than she remembered. His shirt, a deep blue, makes his skin - browner than usual, he must have spent a lot of time outside in Virginia - glow, almost.

He's not smiling, but then, he rarely does when it's just them.

“How was the rest of your summer?” He sits down heavily on her couch, as he usually does, and she sits cross legged on top of the arm.

“Good,” she says, injecting a fake cheeriness to her tone. If they're doing small talk, they might as well do it right. “The Project is an interesting place. I got to write some briefs. Learned a lot.”

“They offer you a job?” he asks, seemingly offhand, the look on his face anything but. On the phone last month, she had accidentally let slip that she wasn't sure if they would, and he scoffed that of course they would, don't be fake modest, that's stupid, and she had gotten defensive, and he was sarcastic, and they had gone ten rounds over it before she yelled and he shut the fuck up.

She considers lying, just to avoid getting an I told you so, but she thinks his reaction if she failed at something might be worse. “Yeah, they did. I'm not sure if I'm going to take it. I still have a year to consider and I want to clerk after graduation anyway.”

“Hmm,” he says, gives her a skeptical look. “Interesting.”

“Yes, it is,” she snaps, with a little flash of irritation that gives her the strength to get to the point. “Anyway, I was thinking and I don’t think we should see each other anymore.”

“Oh?” Thomas says so casually he could be asking about the god damn weather - no, he actually cares about that.

“Yes.” She nods, makes herself look at him calmly. “I'll be busy with third year and applying for clerkships. And I think… well, it doesn't matter. It's what I want, and it’s for the best.”

He shrugs, kicks his feet up on the table. “If you say so.”

“I do,” she says, a little frustrated at his refusal to engage. They weren’t actually dating or anything like that, but it had been almost a year of their lives. “That’s how I feel.”

“Okay.”

She clenches and unclenches her jaw. If he could just stop being an avoidant motherfucker for just one second and acknowledge the fact that she’s actually talking, that would be just fucking great. “Do you have anything to add?”

“Not really,” he says casually. “It’s all up to you. Whatever you want.”

“‘Whatever I want,’” she repeats incredulously. “Are you mad?” He clearly is, it’s as plain as day, but he won’t drop the goddamn act, won’t stop giving her whatever she asks for, some stupid kind of power play that keeps him holding all the cards. Why won’t he just say no to her, like he so desperately wants to?

He looks at her with that tilt of the head, that condescending bullshit, but his shoulders are stiff. “Why would I be? Like I said, it’s your choice.”

“You seem mad,” she presses.

“I’m not,” he says, on the edge of laughter.

“Yes, you are. You're being all passive aggressive and you won’t look at me.”

“You won’t get me to play along with whatever game you’re playing, Angelica. If you don’t want to continue seeing each other, then don’t. If you want to, do. I really don’t give a shit what you do.”

When she looks back on it later, she knows she should have left it at that. Should have said “I don’t give a shit what you do, either,” and made him leave, left him and whatever they were and everything at that.

But she can see the lie in his face, in the stiff way he holds himself, and she can’t resist leaning in and twisting the knife. “Yes, you do,” she says, with a cruel smile to match his.

“Sure, Angelica.”

“‘Sure, Angelica,’” she mocks. “You don’t give a shit about me sleeping with other people then?”

“No,” he says evenly, eyes glittering, “I don’t.”

“Good, because I’m going to.”

“If you meant that, you would have already gone through with one of your pathetic little dates. But please. Continue.” He waves a hand, eyes glittering. “I’m the immature one.”

“I did, all summer. Before and after you. The only reason I let you that once is because _he_ was busy that night,” she says venomously, delighting in the way it makes him press his lips tightly together in an effort to not react. “And I'll be back at it as soon as you leave, starting with people that you think are beneath you. So everyone, really. I’ll fuck other people and they’ll get exactly what you got from me. You’re not fucking special.”

“Because what you do matters so much to me?” he scoffs cruelly. “I don’t need you to think well of me, but you’ve always been pathetically desperate for my approval. And you say I’m the one with the ego.”

“Don’t try the ‘I don’t care what anyone thinks’ act on me. I know you’re full of shit.”

“I really don’t care,” he insists, standing up, and she should let him leave but she _can’t_ , she can't let him go so unaffected.

“Seems like you do,” she counters, getting off the couch and trailing after him. “I want to hear you say it. And I want to know why.”

“There is no ‘why.’ But go ahead. Pretend I tried to make you stay. Whatever it takes to justify this to yourself.”

“Justify what?” she blurts angrily, before she can stop herself.

“Whatever we’re doing here,” he says calmly, pleased that he riled her. “It doesn’t bother me, but if you’re uncomfortable with sleeping with men you don’t like very much, do whatever it takes to make sure you sleep at night. But please, don’t pretend like I forced you to do anything you didn’t want to. You asked for this.” He crosses his arms over his chest, looks down at her coolly. “All of it. It was your choice.”

She could hit him. It’s a favorite trick of his, this “strict interpretation,” sticking exactly to the words and ignoring entirely the larger meaning. Like he didn’t know exactly what he was doing when he dangled things in front of her and waited for her to reach.

“I didn’t know what I was asking for,” she says, the weight of what she’s admitting in her voice. “You did.”

“Please, Angelica.” He rolls his eyes theatrically. “You’re not naive and you never have been. You knew what you were doing. You wanted to play like a grown up so I treated you like one. You can’t claim that I pressured you into anything just because you’ve gone and got your feelings hurt. Grow up.”

She shakes her head. “This is all a game to you, isn’t it? You knew better.”

“And so did you.”

“Jesus Christ, I hate you. I didn’t always, but I sure as fuck do now.”

“Why? I didn’t do anything to you that you didn’t _beg_ for.”

“Because you manipulated me,” she says, for the first time out loud, admitting it to herself as much as she’s accusing him. “You withheld things and gave them to me at will, fucked with my head and made me want things in the first place.”

“Sure,” he says dismissively, and she considers really fucking doing it, just punching him in the goddamn face and breaking that fucking smirk in two. She wonders what he would do. He'd probably just laugh, and it would be a thousand times worse than if he hit her back.

“You made me feel insane for thinking that someone might say no to me. Or that something might not work out exactly the way I wanted, and that’s bullshit,” she says, too worn out for it to be an accusation. “That’s not what life is like.”

“Maybe for other people,” he mutters, exasperated, looking down and drumming his fingers on his thigh like this is all just so tedious. “And so what if I did?” he says defiantly. “I will never understand why someone as smart as you are is so insistent on hiding it. You can do anything you want to, you can take anything you want and you can take it from all those assholes that look down on you that you hate so much. They have no power over you if you decide that they don’t.”

“So you admit it.”

“Angelica, when will you understand that you aren’t regular people? You get to decide who has power and who doesn’t. If you want to make me the bad guy for trying to show you that then so be it.” He half shrugs, and don't say it don't say it  _don't you fucking dare say it_. “Do whatever you want.”

“No,” she seethes, “fuck you, that’s not what you did at all. You made me feel crazy. Like I could never be normal, never be happy. You did that on purpose.”

“Those are some very detailed, very narcissistic delusions.”

She ignores him, the words spilling out of her, sharp and fast and way too honest, scraping her hollow and leaving her raw and empty. “You played with my head to prove that you could. That’s why you picked me. Because I was smart enough to be a worthy opponent.”

He scoffs, crosses his arms over his chest with a little patronizing shake of his head. “If I was this grand manipulator that you think I am, we wouldn’t be having this tired, hysterical, idiotic conversation right now.”

“How the fuck should I know that?” She thought this was hers, she thought this is what she wanted, but she’s suddenly terrified that it isn’t. She can’t do it anymore. “You are smart, Thomas, you’re smarter than me. You fucking win. Are you happy now? Did you get what you wanted from me? Whatever the fuck it was?”

He’s quiet for a long moment. “I never wanted anything from you.”

She shakes her head wildly, on the edge of angry tears. “Liar. I don’t know why you’re lying, but I know you are.”

“Whatever. I'm leaving.”

“Good. This is over. I mean it.”

“Whatever you want.”

“Get the fuck out,” she says shakily. “Go. I don’t ever want to see you again.”

“If you say so,” he says with a sneer. “You know where to find me when you get bored with your next empty fucking suit.”

He doesn't slam the door, doesn't even close it entirely behind him, and she _hates_ him so much she can barely breathe.

She doesn't know how long she stands there, staring at the cracked open door, the way the shadow spreads slowly across the floor, distorting and darkening everything it touches.

Her phone rings, abandoned on her kitchen table. She picks it up without looking at the caller ID. If it's him, which it probably isn't, she doesn't want to have to decide either way. She's sick of having to be the one to choose.

“Hello?”

“It's me!” Peggy says breathlessly. “I'm at Sephora and I can't remember what the shade of that lipstick I stole from you the other day was. It was like a purpley red, but I can't remember what exactly-”

“Peg,” Angelica cuts her off. “Can you come over?”

“Yeah, totally, I have to go by two other places first because I'm trying to find this very specific pair of black ankle boots for fall and they were out the first two places I looked and they had this kind with a buckle but it was so ugly and-”

“No, Peggy. Now. Please.”

“Okay.” Her tone shifts immediately. “I'm on my way. I can be there in ten. Do you need anything?”

Angelica shakes her head, suddenly unable to speak.

“It's okay, Gel, I'll be there soon, I promise,” she says soothingly, keeps the phone pressed to her face as she bullies some old guy out of his cab and gives Angelica's address to the driver. “Angelica? You okay?”

“Yeah,” she says, with considerable effort, holding onto the knowledge that her sister will be here soon like a lifeline. “I mean no, not really, but I'm not like dying or anything.”

“It'll be okay, I'll fix it,” Peggy promises, brash and bold and confident and everything she needs. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” Angelica whispers. “How far are you?”

“Four minutes. Go put on a sweater, the AC in your apartment is always too high and you're shivering, I can hear it through the phone.”

“Okay.”

“Get a glass of water too. Try to breathe slowly.”

Angelica obeys without question, Peggy's familiar bossiness putting her at ease. She really was freezing, only realizes that her shoulders were shaking when they stop.

“Okay, I'm here,” she says finally. “Buzz me up, I don't wanna dig for my key.” Angelica does, listens to the familiar sounds of her footsteps banging down the hallway, and feels a little less alone already. “What happened?” she demands, banging the door shut behind her, flipping on all the lights, and dragging Angelica over to the couch, wrapping her tiny little short person arms around her. “Do you want to call Eliza?”

She clings to Peggy and does not cry, doesn’t want to, not even a little. “No. Not yet.”

“Did he break up with you?” she asks gently.

Of course she knew. “No. Well. I did it. I had to,” she says, still trying to convince herself. “I had to.”

“I'm so proud of you,” Peggy says, and Angelica wants to die. Peggy is her _baby sister_ , Angelica's supposed to do the right thing and be a good example and not cry when she finally breaks up with a man who is objectively awful. She would never, ever in a million years want her sister to ever feel like she does right now. What the fuck would Peggy and Eliza think if they knew? If they really knew the things she did and said and wanted when she was with him, the person he drew out of her. She wonders if they would recognize her. She hopes not.

“Don't say that. I shouldn't have done it in the first place. I'm-”

“Shh,” Peggy soothes. “Breathe.”

“I don't know. I wanted it and then I didn't and then I still did but it was time. Because it was bad,” Angelica says into her chest. “It was so bad.”

“Then it's good that it's over.”

The knot in her stomach snaps and she starts to cry, huge, deep, earnest sobs so loud she can't hear Peggy's heartbeat.

“Breathe,” she says again, wrapping her arms around her even tighter.

“It wasn't all bad,” Angelica sobs. “That's what's so horrible. I liked it. I liked him. I'm such a fucking idiot.”

“Oh, Angelica,” Peggy sighs, strokes Angelica's hair when she slumps with her head in her lap. “Can I call Eliza now?”

She nods wildly. “Please.”

Angelica cries and cries and cries, like a child, like someone stupid, like someone who can't handle the real world, while Peggy talks to Eliza in a low voice somewhere over her head.

She doesn't hear Eliza come in, but the next time her breath catches in her chest there’s another warm hand on her back helping her calm down, and she’s never been so grateful to be one of three. She’s sick of being herself, doesn’t want to be special anymore.

“It’s over. I ended it with him,” she says. “I’ll never see him again.”

“No, you don’t ever have to see him again,” Eliza says gently, and Angelica doesn’t have the strength to correct her.

\---------

Angelica deals. She’s a big girl, a tough one, and she’ll be fine. She’ll be damned if she lets him fuck up her life any further.

That doesn’t stop her from wanting to see him. Barely stops her from almost just showing up at his apartment, watching him give her that snide smile that makes her every nerve stand on edge, telling him to shut the fuck up, goading him into making her. She could do it, if she wants. Let him think that it was all a game like he so clearly does. Fall right back into their goddamn merry go round of feeling powerful then powerless, up and down with the blink of an eye or a single well chosen word. It was just so much, so intoxicating, the fighting and the winning of it, clawing for every inch gained and using every fragment of her mind to get inside his.

But that’s the thing, she forces herself to remember, tries her best to remind herself when it’s light outside and one of her sisters is close enough to make her think straight. She doesn’t want inside his mind. Sure, she wants his easy confidence, that biting wit, his unparalleled brilliance, but she doesn’t want all that comes with it: the loneliness, the dizzying arrogance, being unable to see people as anything but competition.

When she measures out her life in coffee spoons, someday, this’ll be something she has to account for. Something she’ll count up with the rest of her life: one for sorrow, two for joy, three for the girl she was, four for a boy; on and on and on, reckoning with who she was and what she did and what it all meant. Maybe someday she'll be able to put a label on it: two parts good, one bad, six lessons learned and one personality trait discovered. Maybe one day it'll feel worth it.

Today, it’s all she can do to keep from going back to him.

\---------

She throws herself back into her classes, barely looks up from her books and her planner the entire first week, almost forgetting about the stupid welcome back thing until she finds Alex waiting for her after class, ready to walk over.

He’s blabbering about something as usual, some fight he got into with Aaron, how dumb his professor is, how he lost his favorite pen, who even fucking knows, and everything kind of fades to a dull roar when she reads the sign on the door.

_Welcome Back Event! Featuring Special Guest Thomas Jefferson!_

Oh, fuck him. Fuck him fuck him fuck him.

“Ang?” Alex looks at her quizzically. “You coming? Eliza said she’s already here.”

“Yeah, let’s go,” she says, slipping on the smile Alex doesn’t know her well enough to question. No one ever has, except for her sisters.

And Thomas.

Angelica abandons her pride and blatantly ignores him. She hides on the other side of the room, letting some boring second year ask her all about her internship. Which is fine, she’s stupid proud of it and she knows that she’s someone a boring second year might look up to. She just can’t focus.

She can’t talk to him. It’s written all over her face, she knows it is, and in a room full of Columbia Law students there’s at least one person smart enough to figure it out. She doesn’t entirely trust herself not to… react? How exactly, she doesn’t know, but she’s done stranger things before, and really doesn’t need to end up screaming at him in the middle of the room or letting him shove her into what looks like a little closet in the corner of the room. Not that she’s looking, of course. And it’s stupid, jealous and petty and so misguided, but she thinks she might die if she has to see him flirting with someone else, sizing up another target or being _nice_. It occurs to her that she doesn’t actually know what he’s like, normally, if toying with people is his usual MO or if he’s capable of normal human relationships. Too bad no one can ask his wife, she thinks meanly, finishing her third drink.

The boring second year is talking about his class schedule, like she cares, and she pastes a semi-interested look on her face and scans the room for Eliza. These networking things are lame but they do have open bars, and going from tipsy to wasted with her sister sounds like everything she needs.

There she is, next to a wildly gesticulating Alex, and oh fucking Christ he’s wildly gesticulating at Thomas.

“Yo, Angelica!” Alex yells, waves her over like she isn’t five feet away. “Dude. So. We were talking about the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, he’s not a lawyer but -” he pauses, suddenly. He does this now, belatedly realizing that he’s being rude. Eliza’s far too good for him. “Whatever, we all know who he is,” he says dismissively, waving a hand between them. “Thomas Jefferson, Angelica Schuyler. Anyway so we were talking about what it means, and if there are limits to what you can extrapolate from wording and precedent and how much it has to relate to the original doctrine…”

Angelica stands stiffly next to him, trying to figure out how quickly she can bolt without attracting attention or if there’s a subtle way she could move to hide behind Eliza. Probably not, she realizes, and takes another sip of her drink, ignoring the weight of Thomas’s eyes on her.

Eliza, who has a funny look on her face, sizes up Thomas curiously. Angelica watches, unable to look away, like seeing a car crash in slow motion, as Eliza follows his gaze and goes rigid when she lands on Angelica.

“Not exactly, when you consider…”

Angelica doesn’t even listen to whatever Thomas is saying, although the familiar cadence of his voice scrapes along nerves she didn’t even know she had. Eliza is glaring up at Thomas, which isn’t even an adequate description. She’s looking at him like she’s trying to rain down hellfire on him with simply the strength of her eyes. She is pissed, and Angelica knows without a shadow of a doubt that she knows. Eliza _knows_ , and if Angelica thought she could get through the night without having to confront the mess of Thomas related bullshit going on, well. It’s certainly not going to happen now.

“We have to go now,” Eliza announces, interrupting Alex’s ramblings.

“Eliza,” Alex says, laughing uncomfortably, “everything okay?”

“No, it’s really not,” she says, voice tight and even. “We’re leaving.”

“Was it something I said?” Thomas says, half laughing, oblivious, eyebrows practically raised into his hair.

Eliza practically spits venom. “I don’t know, Mr. Jefferson, was it? Because I could ask my _sister_ to elaborate on some of the things I’m sure you said to her but I don’t really think either of us would like to deal with the consequences of me finding out specifics in public, do we?”

“Sister?” he says, bewildered, eyes bouncing between the two; Eliza boiling over, Angelica paralyzed. “Oh. _Oh_. Excuse me.”

“You are not fucking excused, but you will definitely be leaving,” Eliza snaps.

Alex looks pained, trying to subtly twist his arm away from where Eliza’s fingers must be digging into it. “Liza -”

“Shut up, Alexander,” she says sweetly, not taking her eyes off of Thomas’s. “I’m sure I could find out who you know here, and how exactly you managed to become the guest of ‘honor’ tonight simply to be an asshole to her, but I don’t think I’ll have to. Because you know what the insinuation that you’re a predatory piece of shit might to do your precious reputation, otherwise I would have known who you were and been able to put a stop to all of this months ago. We clear?”

Thomas swallows heavily, bereft of all his usual weapons with such a large audience and more than a little cowed in the unexpected face of Eliza’s anger. Eliza, who looks like a kindergarten teacher but has the stony fury of an avenging god. Angelica forgot how terrified he gets of actual confrontation, real human emotion. He's been almost invincible to her for so long that it's hard to remember that other people aren't intimately familiar with his buttons. “Yeah. Bye.”

He risks a glance at Angelica, who meets his eyes for a split second before Eliza hisses, “DO NOT look at her, don’t even think about her ever again,” and he backs away slowly as Alex looks warily at Eliza, wrapping his other arm around her waist like he might need to physically restrain her.

They all watch Thomas disappear, Angelica half ready to follow, as he rather indelicately shoves aside a couple of first years to get out the door.

“Well,” Alex says, finally getting his hand free of Eliza’s death grip, flexes it open and closed a few times. “It’s an open bar, who wants a drink?”

“Please,” Angelica says.

\---------

“I’m sorry,” Alex offers later in the back of the cab, peeking out at Angelica around a lapful of drunk, dozing Eliza. “I didn’t know and I wouldn’t have called you over there if I did. That was a real dick move on his part.”

“Dick moves are the only kind he knows,” Angelica sighs. “But thanks. It’s not like I told anyone, so I wouldn’t expect you to know.”

Alex hums a little, considering. “I mean, I probably should have guessed. Eliza knew you were seeing someone, and I’m pretty well versed in the signs of ‘dating an older guy that one probably shouldn’t be.’”

“Jesus, I almost forgot. That’s probably why she asked me if it was a professor.”

“Okay, fine, but Washington isn’t actively evil. I wasn’t fucking the devil. No offense, of course.”

“‘No offense,’ but you were younger than I am now, and he was older than Thomas is and in a clear position of authority over you. Married, too,” Angelica snaps, a little oversensitive. “Sorry. That was rude.”

“It’s okay. I’m not judging you.”

“No, I know. I don’t judge myself, either? It was stupid, kind of, but it wasn’t all that horrible. I think I just fooled myself, thinking that I could just end it like that. We had both kind of convinced ourselves it was just a sex thing even though it wasn’t. Ending it was…. it was hard. And I wasn’t really prepared. He probably wasn’t, either.”

“That doesn’t make him any less of a dick.”

“No, it does not.”

Alex is quiet next to her, like he so rarely is, and her words are kicking and screaming against her ribcage. Alex doesn’t look up to her, Alex doesn’t need her to be stronger and smarter and take care of him, doesn’t need him to be a big sister. Alex won’t look at her with dark, disappointed eyes when she tells him what she’s done.

“I just. I liked it? How he made me feel. Some of the time, at least, when I won whatever little battles we were fighting or when I guess he decided to let me. But it’s like he saw me. All of me. The parts that I’m not necessarily proud of or the things that I feel like I shouldn’t be. He’s like that, everything I’m afraid I am and want so badly to be, times ten. He dragged it out of me, all my worst thoughts and darkest impulses and it made me feel so powerful, smarter than everyone, better than everyone, like I could bend anyone to my will if I wanted to. And I did want to. Do, I guess.” She looks down and tugs at a loose string in her skirt. “Is that what it was like for you and Washington?”

“No,” he says bluntly. “Not at all. I don’t… I don’t want to cheapen what it was, because I loved him and I still do, but it was far enough in the past that I can admit that it was a daddy issues thing.” He gives a little shrug that’s more like a twitch. “But I get what you mean. About the thoughts, and the wanting things, and knowing that you’re probably capable of doing them even if you know you shouldn’t.” He trails off, looks down at Eliza, tucks a long strand of dark hair delicately behind her ear.

“Yeah. Well.” She feels a sudden stab of petty, stupid jealousy. If only we all had someone that was perfect for us, if only we all had someone to shout down our demons and make us not want them in the first place. “I’ll get over it, eventually. It’s not like he stood me up for the prom or anything.”

“I never liked him, anyway,” Alex adds, letting her lighten the mood. “I don’t trust-”

“Rich liberals,” Angelica finishes for him. “I know.”

“Alexander?” Eliza mumbles sleepily.

“Yeah, babe?”

“Spread a rumor that he hit on me in front of you,” she yawns. “Lie about his age. Tell everyone he’s fifty and gross.”

Angelica laughs for the first time since the evening began. “Eliza, he’s not even forty and he’s on Wikipedia.”

“And honestly, it might have the opposite effect,” Alex says. “He’s rudely hot.”

“I don’t care,” Eliza whines. “Do it anyway, motherfucker.”

“So _I’m_ ‘motherfucker’ and _he_ gets to be Mr. Jefferson? This is bullshit.”

“Don’t worry,” Angelica says. “I’ve called him worse.”

She can feel Eliza worrying. “Angelica -”

“No, Eliza, it’s okay. I appreciate what you did and will forever treasure it in my moments of badass hall of fame, but I knew what I was getting into with him.”

“He made you cry,” Eliza says, angry tone somewhat muffled by the alcohol and Alex’s shoulder. “I know that you handled it for yourself and that you ended it all on your own and I’m proud of you and I get why it’s important to you to be mature and icy and composed about it. But he hurt you, and he doesn’t mean shit to me, so he can hear about it from me. He shouldn’t get to not have consequences for making my sister cry.”

Angelica tries very hard not to cry again. “I love you, you know that?”

“I love you too, Gel.”

“Me three,” Alex says.

“Nerd,” Eliza says affectionately, tugs Angelica closer. She wraps her arm around Eliza’s waist, rests her head on Alex’s shoulder, and tries to forget that she ever felt alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [tumblr](http://iaintinapatientphase.tumblr.com/)!


	8. epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Angelica doesn't lose. Not anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LOOK AT THESE BEAUTIFUL ART PIECES: [HERE](http://raiseaglassto-freedom.tumblr.com/post/140834277689) and [HERE](http://iaintinapatientphase.tumblr.com/post/141550205166/lesbiangelica-ill-write-you-a-sequel-he)! THEY ARE PERFECT AND I LOVE THEM MORE THAN SHOULD BE POSSIBLE.

The girl sitting next to her in this stupid hotel in Jersey is wearing the ugliest pair of kitten heels Angelica has ever seen in her life.

She takes a deep breath, relaxes back into her chair a little. She should probably not be such a brat, but she’s nervous, would be jittering with pent up energy and anticipation like that guy snapping repeatedly across the room if she didn’t know how to control herself. She’s wanted this job as long as she can remember and she’s only an interview and a final vet from getting it.

Angelica looks down at her own heels. They’re plain, truthfully kind of ugly, but they were the right height and at least they’re nicer than anything else anyone else is wearing. Why does no one teach other law school nerds that “business professional” doesn’t need to mean “no personality?” If she sees one more ballet flat or white shirt/navy tie combo she’s going to scream.

The waiting of it, _still_ , after so long - all of high school and college and law school and every night before she fell asleep - is getting to her. She’s not stupid enough to get out her phone or a book or anything (like that girl in the corner, fucking idiot, can’t even see the interviewer glaring at her every time he comes to get the next candidate), and doesn’t really have any desire to make small talk, but she’s too wound up to actually want to be alone with her thoughts.

So she’s sizing up the competition, being rude only in her own mind, imagining what they’re all about, mapping out their strengths and weaknesses. Purely a thought exercise.

Angelica lets the boy with the pretty eyelashes catch her looking, flicks her eyes down to her lap and watches him sit up straighter out of the corner of her eye. He won’t get the job, his tie is too loud and he practically radiates desperation, but he has appealingly active fingers and a certain tense, coiled edge to his posture that she likes. They can get a drink after, maybe. She can hum sympathetically when he tells her how he didn’t have a good answer to a trick question, or maybe she’ll be cool and cocky and let him keep that shell of fake confidence intact, make him rise to her level.

She hasn’t really dated this year, too busy with school and work and putting together a perfect application package that got her here, with four percent of the other applicants, for the second round of interviews. And, if she’s being honest, it took her a little longer to move on after… everything... than she expected.

But she hasn’t called him. Not even once.

The door bangs open, and a tall, gangly boy rushes out crying. Yikes. How’d he even make it to this round?

“Ms. Schuyler?”

Angelica stands up, new but not shiny looking briefcase in hand. “That’s me,” she says brightly, walking over to where the interviewer, a forgettable middle aged man, stands by the door. He’s exactly two inches taller than her in these shoes - she guessed right when she looked him up online.

“Good to meet you. We’re through here,” he says, blatantly sizing her up with a glance as they walk back into the conference room. She’s confident she’ll pass whatever test he throws her way, doesn’t look at him while he does it.

She sits down in the cheap plastic chair delicately, pleased when nothing creaks or cracks, crosses her ankles precisely. She watches as he fiddles through the stack of folders on the desk, barest hint of annoyance creeping into the set of his mouth. She quickly, smoothly reaches in her own bag - he doesn’t notice. “I brought a set of my application materials, if you’d like an extra copy,” Angelica offers, carefully not looking at the mess of disorganized stacks on the table.

He takes it without a thank you, a rude little attempt at a power move. “So. Columbia.”

“Yes, sir,” she says, fighting a flash of irritation when he talks over her.

“For both undergrad and law school. Why?” He wants her to admit that she only went there because her father got her in - she’s not stupid, she knows that at least a part of the reason her resume got a second look is because she’s Senator Schuyler’s oldest daughter, but that doesn’t mean she’s not qualified for the clerkship or that she didn’t earn her spot at Columbia.

She doesn’t shrug, doesn’t smirk, just nods decisively. “I wanted the best. Columbia has unparalleled programs and allows for access to best of the best variety; government, business, non profits. It was a wonderful experience to complete my bachelor’s degrees-” with a tiny little stress on the multiple “- and when I was privileged enough to go back for law school, it was an opportunity to really dig into those opportunities.”

They run through her resume. He picks out one words in every paragraph to grill her on - “rigorous,” he says with a raised eyebrow where she enumerates her coursework; “meaningful,” he says skeptically when she describes her work at the Project; “fluent?” he scoffs at the French in her miscellaneous skills section. She’s prepared for this: he could pick out a comma, tear apart her choice of font or accuse her of the margins being incorrectly sized and she could defend it with her life. Angelica doesn't lose. Not anymore.

“Why do you want to clerk with the Supreme Court?” he asks, leans back in his chair with an expectant look on his face.

She's ready for this, too, has been preparing her entire life. “I like that it’s our own form of everyday revolution. We tend to think that big change requires big moments: wars, elections, some kind of stunning, once in a lifetime event, but it’s intriguing to me that the Supreme Court is able to take these singular cases and turn them into landmarks. I like the idea that the solution was there all along, already written out in another precedent or a comma placement. Maybe it’s not quite a revolution, more of a revelation: the discovery of something that was always there that we just didn’t know how to interpret. It’s a nice thought, that we already have everything we need to fix our problems,” Angelica says, allowing herself to be passionate and honest but remaining confident and composed. It feels… right. Like everything she's ever wanted to be. “I want to be a part of it, the process that refuses to let us settle for the first draft. We’ll never be perfect, but we can be better.”

He doesn’t say anything, lets the silence drag on, becoming what she imagines is tense and uncomfortable. She doesn’t break it, doesn’t ramble or laugh nervously or do any of the things he’s trying to get her to do, just stares him dead in the eye and waits. It’s been a long time since someone could intimidate her with a withheld response, let alone someone as predictable as he is.

“Well. That certainly sounds impressive,” he finally says, begrudgingly. Fucking nailed it.

“Thank you,” she says, and actually means it. “This is something I've been working towards as long as I can remember, and I'm confident that given the chance I'd succeed. I want it, badly, if you'll excuse my candor, and I'm ready to do what it takes to get it.”

“I can see that,” he says, and his shoulders lose a bit of that fake tightness. “We have a few more applicants today, and then you'll be notified when you advance to the final vet. If. Thanks for coming in.”

“Thank you for taking the time,” she says, shakes his hand and follows him back to the door.

He pauses before opening it and turns to her, looking human for the first time since she walked in the door that morning. “I like that you aren’t afraid to go after what you want,” he says, and she easily represses a shudder and smiles.

\---------

**TWO YEARS LATER**

“You’re right.”

Angelica pats John on the freckled cheek. “I know I am.”

“Fuck, this is good. I mean not good good, he’s still fucked, but this is good that we can fix it a little,” John says, spinning around in his chair, foot catching on his empty coffee cup and sending it tumbling to the ground.

Alex’s ex roommate (ex boyfriend, but they like to think that no one knows) works at the ACLU now and wanted her advice on a case, and Angelica still gets a kick out of being a Real Life Lawyer, so she's been stopping by his office after work once a week to help him figure it out. He also promised that his current boyfriend could help her skip the line at her favorite brunch place, so it was really a win for everyone. And justice.

"Careful there, Johnny-boy. Don't break the good china."

"Yes, ma'am," he says and rolls his eyes. "'Good china,' Christ. I forgot you three went to etiquette boot camp."

"First of all, it was three Thursdays after school, and second of all, you _escorted_ your high school _girlfriend_  to _debutante balls_."

"Yeah, and look how well that turned out," he says sarcastically and spins around again.

She laughs and throws her laptop back in her bag. “I’ll see you next week.”

“Sounds good. Thanks, Angelica,” John says. “Really.”

“That’s what I’m here for,” she says, blows him a kiss and shuts the door behind her. She digs out her phone and checks her inbox for anything urgent. Well, fire alarm urgent, she amends when she skims the first few. It’s already seven thirty and she’d like to eat something that isn’t takeout.

There’s a flash of movement in the corner of her eye, someone spinning around in a chair, just like John was, in the fishbowl like conference room. She glances over, more out of habit than real curiosity and pulls up short, watches a look of total, naked, unhidden surprise spread over his face when he sees her and feels it reflected on her own. He stutters and slows to a stop, gripping the edges of the table.

She leans on the heavy door, practically falls into the room, too surprised for self consciousness. “Thomas.”

“Angelica.” He jerks his chin up slightly, shifting in his chair, and she watches as he shoves his emotions back behind that bank vault door that his eyes can be sometimes, tosses away the key with a little twitch of his fingers.

“What are you doing here?” she asks bluntly. She’s been around here enough over the past few months that there’s no way she wouldn’t have known if he worked here. Not that he works anywhere, unless he’s changed radically in the three years since she last saw him.

He has the decency to look a little sheepish, glances self consciously down at the nice suit, the edges of the actually matching socks she can see poking out of his for once not totally heinous shoes. “Con-”

“Consulting,” she finishes, talking over him. “Of course.”

The slightest hint of anger flashes in his eyes, a part of her notes with interest. Muted, perfunctory interest, not the adrenaline rush it used to give her. But still. There's a button there, flashing red, that her fingers are itching to press.

“How do you like working for Uncle Sam?” he asks casually, the implication tossed like a gauntlet between them with the disdain he doesn't need to make clear. Mr. Anti-Establishment in the expensive suit.

“Oh, quite a bit,” she says. She's never told him where she works, and in the office of this non profit there's nothing to indicate that she's with the Court of Appeals. She smiles, slow and dangerous, and he flicks his eyes down at the table, caught. He's been following her career, and she's delighted.

He clenches his jaw, irritated that whatever comment he was going to make about her being a sell out or whatever lost its teeth with his slip. Good.

“I read your latest,” she offers. “Brilliant, as always.”

It was. The Times called it “stunning,” and said that it was “unfortunately too high-concept enough to attract a large commercial audience,” predicted that “like the rest of Jefferson’s post _Declaration_ work, it'll criminally undersell.” She’d bet anything that he loved that.

She bought a copy anyway. She had considered only buying it for her Kindle, just to picture how indignant he would be about that, but she ended up choosing a hardcover, not sure if she meant it as a “fuck you” or a compliment. Thomas used to get a kick out of seeing himself on her bookshelf, but he also used to bitch about sales and mainstream popularity being an inadequate and stupid way to measure the worth of literature, so.

He also used to make weirdly sincere but still rude little jokes about her own work going next to his someday, but she'd rather not think about that right now.

“Thank you,” he says, a bit warily, and she watches him squirm a little, waiting for her to twist the knife. There’s always been a pattern to their conversations and she feels the next step appear ahead of her as she’s already halfway to taking it.

“I liked the part about the universality of inalienable rights,” she says, and oh, he doesn't like that, doesn't like her instinctively going for the part that he knows is the weakest, the argument he only got away with because he's a good enough writer to hide the shaky spots.

“Did you?” he drawls, waiting. Bracing himself for her to push, taut with the anticipation of what she might say, ready to snap back.

She rocks back on her heels a little. “Yes, I did.” Withholding. She remembers that, too.

He laughs a little, low and kind of surprised at himself, drumming his fingers on the table. “Yes, well,” he says, trailing off, the ghost of a smile lingering on his face as he looks at her. “You always did have an eye for the things unsaid.”

Angelica feels a little flicker of realization; not a revelation, nothing new, simply remembering something she knew all along. Like finding a light switch in the dark. She could have him back, if she wants. It’s obvious, clear as day, written all over his face. He still thinks her interesting, still worth devoting a fraction of his precious mind to. He still finds her attractive, obviously, but that was never a sticking point.

They wouldn’t get married. He’s already done that and she has no interest in being anyone’s second wife. They’d probably divide their time between New York, which he still hates, and DC, which he tolerates, depending on where her career ends up. The occasional weekend at his estate, an apartment in Paris. Lots of frequent flyer miles, but she’d travel alone most of the time. Cocktail parties and art shows and and international set of acquaintances, an entire world opened up on the strength of their names and accomplishments. A world where the lowest IQ is 130, where people use “summer” as a verb and no one discusses all the money they pretend not to have or gives off any pretense of warmth. A cool, distant little crucible that they both set their own little fires in when they get bored, fighting over this, provoking each other into that.

If/when she decides to run for office one day, oh, what a narrative that’ll be. America’s Genius and the bright young lawyer: both tall, pretty, charming, both old enough money for the traditionalists, young and progressive enough to be outsiders; pretentious enough to be aspirational, and Thomas does a very convincing “man of the people,” when he so chooses.

God, she can see it, so clearly, the two of them in their own little world. She’d be lying if she said a part of her didn’t want that. She does, so badly, the part of her that drives her relentlessly to be the best, that reminds her everything's a competition, that wants nothing more than to throw herself at him again.

But Angelica’s not twenty five anymore, and she doesn’t need him and his bullshit like she used to. She would never be able to justify whatever they would be to her sisters, and while that may have been okay for before, for who she was then, she can’t imagine hiding so much of herself from them ever again. For all of their sympathy and understanding, they really don’t understand what went on between her and Thomas. Eliza’s perceptive enough to see exactly who he was to her with a single look, but she still can’t and could never understand who Angelica was to him. She doesn’t want to be just Thomas’s Angelica, a person that her sisters wouldn’t be proud to know. They’d never recognize her, and she doesn’t want them to.

She can feel it, the longer she stands here with him, the two parts of her splintering along the edge it took her so long to patch up, the halves she tried so hard to make whole. She never left who she was when she was with him entirely behind, she just… accepted those parts of herself. She doesn’t feel guilty for being a little cocky anymore, and she’s better at playing people when she needs to, but she doesn’t enjoy it like she could. Like he does. Angelica grew up, in a sort of way, came to terms with who she was and is and wants to be.

He didn’t. Thomas doesn’t need or want to strive for anything more or keep pushing himself to be better. And he won’t, he’s perfectly fine with himself the way he is. It's like the inverse of that vile saying about high school girls. The problem with dating older men, she thinks, a hysterical little giggle building in her chest, is that you grow up, and they stay the same age.

So she could have him back. Could let her smile soften, linger in the room a little longer, give him the opening to ask her to dinner or for a drink or simply back to his place. He’ll take the chance if she offers it, reach for it if she dangles it in front of him. It’s an oddly comforting thought, knowing that he’ll always be there, a thought she can keep in the back of her mind for rainy days. She knows what to expect from him, knows the things she’ll like and those she’ll hate. The idea of them together - it’s a floor, a touchstone, a solid understanding of the worst that things could be.

She could also tell him to go fuck himself, like she’s often imagined doing. He still deserves it, even if she’s gotten over everything. Mostly.

“You never did write me that sequel,” she says finally, something of a compromise, something of a test.

He knows what she’s talking about immediately, one side of his mouth quirking up. It’s nice to see that it meant something to him, too. “I didn’t,” he agrees. “I guess you could say I’ve been lacking inspiration lately. Maybe someday.”

Angelica looks down, smiles to herself. “Well. You know where to find me if you ever do,” she says, and leaves Thomas behind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the end! thank you so, so much for reading this and being engaged and giving such thoughtful feedback. i really, really enjoyed writing this - even more than i thought i would, and i hope you like it as well!
> 
> SO. i am on [tumblr](http://iaintinapatientphase.tumblr.com/), please please please come say hi! this is all i intend to write in this particular universe, but i have a few snippets i plan to put together at some point, and i'm working on another angelica/tjeff story that i'm super excited about as well as a bunch of other stuff.
> 
> thank you again!


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